Macfadden 60-275 (1967)

Title : Pearls Before Swine

Author : Margery Allingham

Cover : uncredited
   [N. Y. : Macfadden, 1967. Second edition. First published, London, William Heinemann, 1945, as Coroner's Pidgin.]

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The Macfadden paperbacks issued in the 1960s seemed to me among the most bland of the late vintage entries. 60-275 is true to form, with more of a Sixties feeling that’s incongruous with the novel’s 1940s London fog bonafides. However, it’s noteworthy as a top drawer entry in the canon of the great Margery Allingham. The quirky lettering and pearl necklace rather in the form of a question mark are pluses.

Macfadden 60-351 (1967)

Title : The Yellow Villa
Author : Suzanne Blanc
Cover art : photo [uncredited]
  [New York, Macfadden, 1967. No. 60-351. An Inspector Menendes mystery. First published, Garden City, NJ, Doubleday, the Crime Club, 1964].

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Yellow Villa is a potboiler mystery set in Mexico and arrives a little late for the vintage cycle. Anyway, the Macfadden reissue features a curiously garish 60s style cover with a shapely brunette in a tight fitting spacesuit-like dress brightly lit by a swirling spotlight. Cool yellow lettering for the title and author. Is the model on the cover wearing a wig? Fun to compare this vintage pb interpretation with the Dutch Prisma Detectives' De Diva en de Dood. I like the Macfadden (quite a bit) better.

Macfadden Books, #50-203, 1964

Title : Dead Man Control
Author : Helen Reilly
Cover art : uncredited
[Macfadden Books 50-203. 1964. An Inspector McKee mystery. Luridly splashy cover art by an uncredited artist].


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The prolific Helen Reilly has been well served by the covers of her books; that Dell Silver Leopard cover in particular is an absolute classic[!], over-the-top even by the most sensationalist standards of the vintage pb’s peak years. I’m not too familiar with Macfadden Books, the publisher of our present title. It’s my impression that they came to the vintage paperback party a little late in the day, and, fair or not, I tend to think of them as decidedly second-tier. But they did produce some cool cover art that recalls (in a 1960s sort of way) the vintage era’s pulpiest, pinch-of-trash publishers like Avon, Eton and Graphic. And indeed, the Dead Man Control cover, with its early sixties vintage, does arrive a little late in the classic cycle, but who cares? What a cover! How can you ever go wrong with a bright red backdrop and yellow lettering? By the way – what about that title? What exactly is ‘dead man control’? Something to do with zombies?. Anyway, things I like about the cover : the splashy, choppy red color which dominates the cover; the shadowy figure of the P.I. lurking in the background ; and the girl’s late 50s hair style, blue dress and matching blue shoes.