Friday, August 9, 2013

Paperback 682: The Temptress / Carter Brown (Signet S1817)

Paperback 682: Signet S1817 (1st ptg, 1960)

Title: The Temptress
Author: Carter Brown
Cover artist: Barye Phillips

Yours for: $8

Sig1817

Best things about this cover:

  • That is some spectacular cleavage. The "the" looks like it wants to go hide in there.
  • This "standing woman / dead man" cover is a type. I feel the need to go back and tag all the others "SWDM"—it says everything about the ambivalent erotics of vintage paperback cover art.
  • That font is sassy. It doesn't scare me, though. Looks like the opening credits of a '60s sitcom.


Sig1817bc

Best things about this back cover:
  • I'm confused by "just." It assumes a baseline opinion that "murder" is a pretty word. It's a horrendously ugly word.
  • So Chandler writes "Trouble Is My Business" and then for decades other writers / copyeditors copy, parody, and generally dead-horse the hell out of that phrase.
  • LOVE that we can see here what important cultural touchstones "Peyton Place" and "Lolita" were for the late '50s/early '60s world. 
  • "An August Signet Paper Edition"—"August" ... like, the adjective? That is unexpected. In fact, just plain weird. Also, likely, not true.

Page 123~

"Yeah," he nodded. "She had the pictures and we burned 'em. We didn't know there was more of them—figured they were the only ones he had!"

Incriminating photos / blackmail schemes are the topic of 59.8% of all hard-boiled stories. Give or take.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

3 comments:

Tulse said...

"That font is sassy."

I think the serifs deserve their own spinoff series.

D.A. Trappert said...

I assume it means it will be released in the month of August.

Rex Parker said...

Hmm. Not sure I've ever seen a book promoted by month that way.