In the Teeth of the Evidence by Dorothy L. Sayers (New English Library, 1960)

I found this rather battered specimen in the (where else?) Green Shed:

All that was left of the garage was a heap of charred and smouldering beams.  In the driving seat of the burnt-out car were the remains of a body. 

An accident, said the police. 

An accident said the widow.  She had been warning her husband about the dangers of the car for months. 

Murder, said Lord Peter Wimsey . . . and proceeded to track down the killers.

In spite of the book's shabbiness, this cover really demonstrates how perspective and a limited palette can be used to create a dramatic image!

The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece by Erle Stanley Gardner (Cassell, 1945)

Another find from the Lifeline Bookfair vintage table!  This is the first Australian edition of this book.  It's a very early paperback and a wartime publication, so it's in an austere utility format.  No exciting covers here!

There's also no blurb on this book, but there's really no need.  It's a Perry Mason story so we all know how it goes—Perry's client is arrested for murder, Perry locks horns with the police, Perry exposes the real killer at his client's trial.  However, there is a fascinating advertisement on the back which explains how the advertiser's product contributed to the War Effort:

Three more books by Agatha Christie (Fontana 1976,1977 and 1980)

And one last set of books by Agatha Christie.  Last week I wrote about the same titles published in the late 1950s and early 1960s:

A Pocket Full of Rye (1976)

A sick joke brought the sharp-tongued Miss Marple to the Fortesque home...

     Sergeant Hay looked up at Inspector Neele from the bottom of the stairs.  He was panting. 

     "Sir," he said urgently.  "We've found her!" 

     "Found who?"

     "Gladys, Sir, the maid.  Strangled, she was, with a stocking around her throat—been dead for hours, I'd say.  And sir, it's a wicked kind of joke—there was a clothes peg clipped on her nose..."

Peril at End House (1977)

Accident Number One: the heavy picture that falls across Miss Buckley's bed

Accident Number Two: the boulder that thunders past her on the cliff path 

Accident Number Three: the car brakes that fail on a steep hill 

Accident Number Four: the bullet that misses her head by inches 

But the would-be murderer makes a grave mistake—he shoots at his victim while she is talking with Hercule Poirot!

The Labours of Hercules (1980)

A modern 'Labours of Hercules'...

The idea appeals to Hercule Poirot's vanity.  Before he retires to grow superb vegetable marrows he will undertake  just twelve more carefully chosen cases.

All of them will resemble the remarkable feats of strength performed by that brawny hero of ancient Greece, the first Hercules.  But when the fastidious Hercule Poirot faces his modern monsters, his only weapon will be his brilliant powers of deduction...

... And what a contrast!  The earlier editions of these books depict realistic, but rather generic Young Women in Peril on their covers.  These paperbacks are adorned with slightly surrealistic and very symbolic art.   And yes, the symbolism does tie in very neatly with the plots of the books.

The cover paintings on the later books were done by Tom Adams—an illustrator best known for the Agatha Christie covers he did for Fontana and for Pocket Books in America.  They were gathered together in a book (Tom Adams' Agatha Christie Cover Story published by Paper Tiger in 1981).  I'll admit to a soft spot for these covers; not only are they visually intriguing, but I first read Agatha Christie in these editions when I discovered the author as a teenager!

Four Books by Agatha Christie (Pan, 1955-1960)

And.... the Lifeline Bookfair continued!  Here I have another four paperbacks by Agatha Christie:

Five Little Pigs (1955)

Is the floating head meant to be Poirot?  Somehow I never pictured him as wearing glasses.

FIVE LITTLE PIGS starts with Carla Lemarchant calling on the famous detective Hercule Poirot.  She tells him she is really the daughter of the painter Amyas Crale for whose murder, sixteen years ago, her mother Caroline was sentenced to death.  Carla, convinced of her mother's innocence and eager to clear her name, persuades Poirot to investigate the case.  It appears that there are five people who are concerned (hence the book's title) from the nursery-rhyme about the five little pigs).  They are: Philip Blake, Crales's greatest friend; Philip's elder brother, Meredith; Elsa Greer, "the girl in the case", who is now Lady Dittisham; Cecilia Williams, the governess; and Angela Warren, Caroline's half-sister.  Poirot interviews each of the five.  Then each provides for him a written narrative of the events leading up to Crale's murder.  Finally, Poirot reconstructs the crime and reaches his startling conclusion.  Whether you will guess the solution before it is revealed will depend on your ability to avoid being deceived by the 'double twist' at the story's climax.

... And the back cover contains a solid block of text, ticking of all the main plot points and characters one by one.  Really, why buy the book when you can get a complete summary of the story on the back cover?

The Secret of Chimneys (1956)

THE SECRET OF CHIMNEYS.  This is Agatha Christie at her mysterious best.  Anthony Cade, who liked an exciting life, was in Bulawayo escorting a group of tiresome tourists for Castle's Select Tours when Jimmy McGrath, an old friend, turned up with an attractive offer: £250 if he would carry to a London publisher the memoirs of Count Stylpitch, late Prime Minister of Herzoslovakia.  Anthony jumps at it, and also agrees to find a lady named Virginia Revel and return to her some letters misguidedly bequeathed to McGrath as possible blackmail material.  He hasn't been in London long before the letters are stolen from him, and Virginia, a beautiful widow, finds a dead man in her study—shot with a revolver engraved with her name.  Then a Hersoslovakian envoy is shot at 'Chimneys', one of England's stately homes.  From there on, this light-hearted thriller moves at a terrific pace.  There are detectives French, British and American ; characters gay, scatter-brained, sinister and odious.  And there are murders, clues, secret passages, a fabulous jewel, a mysterious rose emblem, a curious organization called the Comrades of the Red Hand, an international jewel-thief called King Victor, and impersonations, assassinations and machinations.  At the end of it all Anthony, who has done most of the work and kept everyone (including the reader) guessing, claims a double reward ; a lovely lady and a very, very strange new job.

Another solid and pedestrian block of prose, this time listing all the story elements in one of Christie's early thrillers.  "But wait!  There's more!"

The ABC Murders (1959)

MR HERCULE POIROT

        YOU FANCY YOURSELF, DON'T YOU, AT SOLVING MYSTERIES THAT ARE TOO DIFFICULT FOR OUR POOR THICKHEADED  BRITISH POLICE?  LET US SEE, MR. CLEVER POIROT, JUST HOW CLEVER YOU CAN BE.  PERHAPS YOU'LL FIND THIS NUT TOO HARD TO CRACK.  LOOK OUT FOR ANDOVER ON THE 21ST OF THE MONTH

YOURS, ETC.,

A B C  

This letter disturbs the famous detective.  Sure enough, a Mrs. Archer is murdered at Andover on the 21st. 

A second lettter announces a murder at Bexhill: and Betty Barnard is found strangled. 

Then a third, at Churston, the victim being Sir Carmichael Clarke... a fourth, at Doncaster on the day of the great St. Leger race. 

Beside the corpse each time lies an ABC railway guide open at the name of the place where the crime occurs. 

A B C D... How far through the alphabet will the crazy murderer get?  Will his challenge to Poirot succeed?

Now this is better.  The back cover tells you just enough to spark your interest.   And The ABC Murders is one of Christie's more intriguing whodunnits, too. 

The Hound of Death (1960)

Here is Agatha Christie in a different mood.

Her first story, THE HOUND OF DEATH, is fair warning that she intends to make you shiver and think!

Each of the twelve stories underlines the remarkable versatility of this very remarkable writer.  Some, like THE RED SIGNAL and THE FOURTH MAN, may make you shift uneasily in your chair.  Others, like the ironic WIRELESS, will give you grim satisfaction. 

Tucked away in the middle, like a bonus, is a story which is clearly the origin of her world-wide stage and screen success, WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION.

And this is a volume of short stories, so we can forgive the blurb writer for selecting a handful of stories and telling us how we're going to react to them.  What really grabbed me was the picture on the front cover.  It's not often you see pictures of frightened men on the covers of books, and this chap is so plainly terrified he has got me intrigued!

Three Books by Agatha Christie (Fontana, 1958-1961)

I'm beginning to think I should re-name this blog "I Found It At the Lifeline Bookfair"!  I found these on a small table devoted solely to the books of Agatha Christie at last weekend's Autumn book fair:

A Pocket Full of Rye (1958)

"An unusual sound penetrated through the almost sound-proof door of Mr. Fortescue's office.  Muffled, it was yet fully recognisable, a strangled agonised cry..." 

Even as Miss Grosvenor, Mr. Fortescue's secretary, came up to him, his body was convulsed in a painful spasmodic movement. 

Words came out in jerky gasps. 

"Tea—what the hell—you put in the tea—get help—quick get a doctor—"

And that is, unfortunately, the end of Mr. Fortescue—but the beginning of one of Agatha Christie's most ingenious stories that takes all of the skill of Inspector Neale to solve.

 

The Labours of Hercules (1961)

A modern 'Labours of Hercules'—it was an idea that appealed to Hercule Poirot.

In the period before his retirement, he decided to undertake twelve cases with special reference to the twelve labours of ancient Hercules.

Amusing and original, each case more baffling than the last, we guarantee the Labours of Hercules will test the wits of the most ingenious armchair detective.

Peril At End House (1961) 

An
unknown
agent
was
methodically
planning
her
death 

—the heavy picture that fell across her bed
—the rock that landed at her feet
—the car brakes that failed
NOW—a bullet that missed her head by inches

Fontana cover artists of the late 50s and early 60s clearly had a thing for depicting young women in peril!

The Blind Side by Patricia Wentworth (Hodder and Stoughton, 1955)

Ross Craddock had not been on the best of terms with his relations.  More than one of them had reason to wish him dead, as Ethel Bingham was pleased to inform Detective Abbott and considering the number of residents of Craddock House, who, for one reason or another , withheld information, this prying old maid was just the answer to a policeman's prayer.

Lots of people wanted Ross Craddock dead... and sure enough, he's murdered by page 49!

It's a truth universally acknowledged, that the victim in a Golden Age whodunnit is invariably a loathsome person.  This serves two purposes.  Firstly, it lets the reader enjoy the puzzle without worrying about the person who has been murdered.  Secondly it gives the author plenty of suspects to bamboozle the readers with!

The Glass Slipper by M.G. Eberhart (Pan, 1952)

THE GLASS SLIPPER is a mystery novel by a well-known writer who excels in creating an atmosphere of tension and mystery.  A year ago Rue had been sent by the hospital to nurse Crystal Hatterick, wife of one of Chicago's most distinguished surgeons.  Crystal was a patient of Brule Hatterick's protégé and friend, Dr. Andrew Crittenden, and under his care she had been well on the road to recovery when suddenly, to everyone's amazement, she died.  And within a few months Rue became the second Mrs Hatterick, with the world at her feet--wealth, position, beauty.  Yet when someone called her Cinderella, and said, "I wonder--does the glass slipper ever pinch your little foot?" the arrow found its mark.  Complete happiness had eluded her.  Andy Crittenden is the first to tell her that she is suspected of murdering Crystal.  Events then move fast. Another death occurs.  The suspense grows!

I must admit the question that preoccupied me while I was reading this was, "What kind of author names her heroine 'Rue'?  And what prompts her to name another character 'Brule'?"  

Mignon Eberhart was once called the "American Agatha Christie", but judging by this there's a reason why her books have fallen into obscurity, while Christie's have never fallen out of print.  Agatha Christie's characters are often collections of stereotypes, but they live on the page.  The characters in The Glass Slipper—Rue and Brule, et al—are puppets that exist only to further the plot.  Christie's characters have motives for doing what they do—Eberhart's characters' actions make no sense!

This is one of the older Pan paperbacks in my collection--but not THE oldest.  That will be coming up shortly...

Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie (Fontana, 1960)

Another from Fishermen's Wharf Markets:

 

  Murder is easy....

... so long as no one suspects you and the person in question is the last person one would suspect.

Surely you won't let Agatha Christie diddle you again--it would be again, wouldn't it?

I'm trying to figure out what's up with the woman on the cover.  I can't decide whether she is a) frightened, b) sinister or c) doing some weird kind of face toning exercise!

The Case of the Restless Redhead by Erle Stanley Gardner (Pan, 1962)

 

She had a neat figure, plenty of bad luck--and red hair.

They caught her with stolen diamonds--but as she told the story it was a frame-up, and Perry Mason believed her.

Then came news of more serious crime--and Mason found the charge against his client was murder.

It never fails.  No matter what a client initially hires Perry Mason for--to settle a parking fine, to get a divorce--before the end of the book they're up on a charge of murder.

My advice to anyone thinking of consulting Perry Mason?  Don't.

Anna, Where Are You? by Patricia Wentworth (Hodder and Stoughton, 1959)

Another find from the Lifeline Bookfair:

about this book

The twentieth ' Miss Silver ' mystery.
Anna sounds a dull, uninteresting girl, but when she stops writing after three years of intensive post-school correspondence, Thomasina becomes anxious about her old school-friend.  In her last letter Anna spoke of a new job without giving any details, and then, to quote Thomasina, she disappears.  The case is put before Miss Silver... "Just a girl who has stopped writing."

 Here we have a dynamic cover illustration (Who is that girl?  And who or what is menacing her?) paired with a downright clunky piece of prose on the back of the book.  Let's hope the potential buyers of this publication found the front cover more intriguing than they found the back cover off-putting.