4000 Years Under the Sea by Philippe Diolé (Pan, 1957)

The fascinating pursuit of undersea archaeology has been much developed in recent years.  In this book Philippe Diolé , who wrote The Undersea Adventure, tells enthusiastically of 'free diving' experiences off the coasts of Southern France and North Africa.  He shows that the rewards are not won without a hard struggle.  A sunk ship laden with statues or wine-jars may be located; but it will be buried under a dozen feet of oozy mud.  A statue may be so encrusted with molluscs or overgrown with sea vegetation as to be unrecognisable.  To expose the walls of a Roman villa lying beneath the Mediterranean, divers worked four years, lifting first a top layer of sand, next a clay deposit thirty inches deep, and finally digging into pebbles and mud.  By linking the discoveries with history, M. Diolé gives fascinating information about seamanship, trade, wines and the spread of cultures in antiquity.

Double or Quits by Erle Stanley Gardner (Corgi, 1964)

Another book from the Lifeline Bookfair.  This one is a bit battered, but it's still readable:

 

QUIETLY

 it began : with a hunt for a missing secretary and some stolen jewels.

COMPLICATING

the issue : blackmail and murder

FASCINATING
it became : with a rich divorcee and a lonely widow

CLIMAX

was when Donald Lam took a long drink from a bottle of poisoned Scotch.

There's something wrong with the the corpse depicted on the cover.  Oh, he's ghastly enough (who expects a dead body to be decorative?) but his head looks flattened out and distorted somehow, as if it had been run over by the car whose wheel we see in the top of the illustration.  He wasn't, by the way.  The victim in this murder mystery died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Dud cover illustrations aside, there's a little bonus in the back of the book--Corgi was running a crossword competition and offering cash prizes to the winners:

£5--that was quite a lot of money in 1964!

Barnabas, Quentin and the Magic Potion by Marilyn Ross (Paperback Library, 1971)

I got this at the "going out of business" sale of one of my favourite bookshops:

 

Barnabas predicts trouble for Collinwood when Nicholas Freeze, in whose antique shop Carolyn Stoddard works, discovers a centuries-old potion that promises eternal youth.  Soon after, Mr. Freeze's daughter Hazel tricked into taking the serum, dies.  Carolyn is grief-stricken over her friend's death.  Barnabas insists she stay on at the shop to watch Nicholas Freeze and his associates, one of whom Carolyn suspects is Quentin Collins, back at Collinwood in a disguise.

Then Carolyn sees Hazel's ghost.

She interprets this as a warning that Mr. Freeze has marked her for his next victim.  Barnabas still refuses to let her quit.

Has Barnabas made a fatal mistake by deliberately endangering Carolyn's life?  Or will his plan avenge Hazel's murder and put her spirit to rest?

Even the most dedicated fans of Dark Shadows have trouble deciding exactly what is and isn't canon.  That's not so surprising: the writers of the show made it up as they went along, and if they thought of something exciting that contradicted a previously established fact then the previously established fact got tossed out the window.  After all, they were writing for an ephemeral daily soap and who'd notice the contradictions (or even care if they did?)

So it's also not surprising that when somebody decided to commission a series of tie-in novels, they didn't take particular care to see that they conformed to the show.  What they did instead was give a brief description of Dark Shadows to a writer of Gothic romances who had never actually watched the series.  The results are ... interesting, let us say.  The names of most of the characters are the same as in the TV show (though some major characters have gone missing in action) but somehow their personalities are subtly wrong.  Their backstories differ from the backstories of the characters in the TV series and their physical descriptions certainly don't match!

After reading a few of them, I've come to the conclusion that the Dark Shadows novels exist in a parallel universe to the Dark Shadows TV series.  And yes, parallel universes are one of the things that are definitely canon in the Dark Shadows universe (along with time travel!)

(The cover photograph on this book is a still of Jonathan Frid in his role of Barnabas Collins.   Apart from that it doesn't really have anything to do with the story inside the book.)

The Murders on Fox Island by Margaret Page Hood (Dell, 1960)

 

They Called Her A Wanton,

the people of Fox Island, but Jeanne Marie was only young and full of high spirits.

Her constant teasing flirtations, with any man and even with his own brother, were meaningless--or so Jeanne Marie's husband told himself.

Until the night he found her lying on her bed in a flimsy nightgown.  Dead.  With his dead brother beside her.

And found himself the chief suspect for a double murder.

 As I read this one I kept wondering whether it was part of a series--the author kept making passing references to the personal life and history of her detective character.  And sure enough, a quick search of Google confirmed my suspicions.  Margaret Page Hood wrote a number of books starring Deputy Sheriff Gil Donan, of Fox Island, Maine.  Evidently Fox Island was one of those quiet little rural communities with a high murder rate.  They're oddly common in detective fiction!

The Craghold Curse by Edwina Noone (Belmont Tower Books, 1972)

This book is a weird mashup--combining ghosts, gangsters, G-men and some kind of demonic desk clerk!  When I saw it in the Green Shed I just had to buy it:

 

A "holiday of horror" --well, we've all had those.  You flight is delayed.  The airline loses your luggage.  The air-conditioning in your hotel room fails, and it rains the whole time you're away...

Oh.  Not that kind of Horror Holiday?

HORROR HOTEL

Craghold House had much to offer as a resort.  It was a picturesque area surrounded by Craghold Lake, Goblin Wood, and the Caves of Hex.  It was an area rich in legends of doomed families, curses and ghosts.  Theresa Galliani and her father would take a vacation here like no other--a vacation at Craghold House.

How could anyone resist a resort like that?

The Time Masters by Wilson Tucker (Lancer, 1971)

Wilson Tucker is another one of my "forgotten favourites" --a science fiction author whose work I relish, but is barely remembered today.

THE YEAR THE FUTURE BEGAN

Was it 1940--when the United States made the fateful decision to proceed with the construction of an atomic bomb?  Was it 1957--when Sputnik finally cracked the door that led into space?  Or will it be that day in the very near future when the first starship probe seeks the nearest stars, in hope of finding intelligent life other than man?  The question is of the utmost importance to one man and one woman, castaway on this alien planet, Earth, by an unimaginable disaster--10,000 years ago!

  "An unimaginable disaster".  Oh please.  That's almost the same as telling us that the author couldn't think of a reason to strand his characters on Earth, so he fudged it.

In any case, it doesn't really matter, because the emphasis in this book is on what our 10,000 year old castaways are doing in the here and now--"now" being the near future the author has imagined.   The original publication date was 1953, so in some ways it's a very 1950s future filled with secrets and Cold War paranoia.

Of course, the 1953 copyright date makes complete nonsense of the reference to Sputnik on the back cover, because for obvious reasons Sputnik doesn't appear in the book!

The front cover on the other hand... it's a beautiful example of late sixties/early seventies design.  It depicts our ancient castaways falling to Earth in transparent spacesuits--or maybe they're indulging in a bit of nude free-falling disco instead.  Either way, I love it! 

Appointment With Death by Agatha Christie (Pan, 1957)

Another book I bought for its cover!

 

"You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?"

These startling words overheard by Hercule Poirot in a Jerusalem hotel, open

APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH

by Agatha Christie

 The speaker is a young American, Raymond Boynton; he is talking to his sister Carol about their stepmother.  Old Mrs. Boynton, it appears, was a prison wardress before her marriage, and her ingrained lust for power and cruelty has gradually driven her family to desperation.  While she lives, there can be no happiness for any of them.  Soon an expedition is arranged to Petra, "the rose-red city"; and there a death occurs.  The problem is taken up by Colonel Carbury in Amman just as Poirot arrives with a letter of introduction to him.  And so the little Belgian detective becomes involved in one of the most extraordinary cases of his career.

Trust me on this: in his entire career, Hercule Poirot has never become involved in an ordinary case.

(The back cover blurb is a strangely unexciting summary of the first half of the book.  And it's in the passive voice too--an expedition "is arranged" and a death "occurs".  No, a death didn't "occur"--this is Agatha Christie.  Someone was murdered!)