Sunday, June 20, 2010

Paperback 327: The Case of the Constant Suicides / John Dickson Carr (Dell 91)

Paperback 327: Dell 91 (1st ptg, 1945)

Title: The Case of the Constant Suicides
Author: John Dickson Carr
Cover artist: Gerald Gregg

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:
  • Gerald Gregg does great borderline-abstract covers. Bold shapes and colors. Simple, but I like it a lot.
  • That is some thick, thick, possibly polyethylene blood.
  • I'm trying to imagine what "constant suicides" could possibly mean. Are they literally occurring non-stop, around the clock? That's rough.

Best things about this back cover:
  • Mapback!
  • I want to live in Angus Campbell's room.
  • The only castle in all of Scotland made entirely of red Legos.
  • I'm not buying "Courtyard." Looks more like "Sheep Pen."

Page 123~

"No, my boy. The real meat of the thing is here." Dr. Fell made the pages riffle like a pack of cards. "In the body of the diary. In the account of this activities for the past year."

He frowned at the book and slipped it into his pocket. His expression of gargantuan distress had grown along with his fever of certainty.

"Hang it all!" he said, and smote his hand on his knee. "The thing is inescapable! Elspat steals the diary. She reads it. Being no fool, she guesses—"

"Smote!" I didn't know anyone but God ever did that. Cool.

~RP

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5 comments:

Preston said...

If you want more smiting, browse through Le Morte D'Arthur - it averages at least one a page, as I recall.

Brian Busby said...

That must surely be one of the simplest mapbacks... so simple that the artist was forced to indicate the obvious: front door, courtyard, pier. It leads one to believe that all takes place within a 30-metre radius.

Graham Powell said...

I JUST got this book in the mail yesterday. Not the mapback edition, though.

Belvoir said...

Defenestration over spilled ragu is no laughing matter, people.

Michael5000 said...

You THINK you want to live in Angus Campbell's room. But you'd be sick of the stairs by Day 3.