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 Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Samuel L. Clemens (Masterpiece Library, 1967)

Found in the Green Shed:

A Bright, Fresh, Summertime World of Boyhood

When "Mark Twain"--as Samuel L. Clemens signed his books--was writing TOM SAWYER, published in 1876, he was already in his 40s.  The carefree days of boyhood in a small Missouri town were already far behind him.  He remembered them sharply, but the years brought a humorous perspective.  He could appreciate all the fun of being a boy.

What did small boys do in a small town so long ago, when there was no television, no telephone, no movie houses?

They went swimming, they whitewashed fences, traded marbles and other prized possessions, they formed secret societies and had adventures filling up every minute of the time.  Tom Sawyer even managed to attend his own funeral, though he was very much alive!

Samuel L. Clemens was born in 1835 and spent his youth in a small town not much different from the one depicted in the book.  Before he died in 1910 at the age of 75, he adventured across the country and around the world, and wrote many books.

 The ghost of Mark Twain looms over an oblivious Tom Sawyer—who incidentally, looks more like a teenager in this picture than a "small boy".   Still, it's a bright cheerful cover that successfully conveys the mood of the classic boys' adventure story.  The really puzzling thing about this edition of Tom Sawyer, is why the editor insists on calling the author by his birth name of "Samuel L. Clemens", rather than his better known nom de plume "Mark Twain"! 

Out of My Mind by John Brunner (NEL, 1968)

A very battered paperback found in the Green Shed:

 

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE... A wide canvas--and a wide group of stories.  All the way from the downright vicious to the most gently tender: stories rich with humour, ripe with passion.

Just two from man's short past--a blink in time.  A few more for the present we all live in.  And more from the long reach of the future.

Here is a brilliant collection of stories representing the amazing talent of John Brunner.  Read them and discover why the author is fast becoming one of the most popular science fiction writers of the sixties.

The New English Library's science fiction paperbacks had some fascinatingly odd cover art—including this one.  It really doesn't have much to do with the stories inside, all of which were either set in the present or the very near future on Earth.  It does give an impression of strangeness, however, which is perhaps the best come-on you can make to a potential buyer of science fiction!

This Is Murder by Erle Stanley Gardner (WDL, 1960)

Sam Moraine, businessman, poker player and friend of the D.A. agreed as a lark to act as go-between in a kidnapping case.  Following instructions, he went to the boat, delivered $10,000 in old bills and received in exchange a bundle of blonde dynamite named Ann Hartwell.

As they reached the mooring float, they were met by the beam of a flashlight and a man's voice saying:

"You're under arrest, both of you.  Get your hands up in the air and keep them that way."

It was the Federal boys, and when they'd finished working him over, Sam thought the case was finished.

But it was only beginning.  What had started out as a simple adventure turned into a boiling mess of crooked politicians, double-crossing cops, ex-cons, a certain lady of elegant if easy virtue - and MURDER!

 Of course it did.

This is one of Gardner's earlier novels (first published in 1935 under the name of Charles J. Kenny) and not part of any of his series.   He'd been writing for nearly fifteen years before that, however, and he'd honed his craft publishing in magazines such as Black Mask and Detective Fiction Weekly.  In other words, he was already a slick and professional crime writer by the time this entertaining yarn was first released.

Alias the Saint by Leslie Charteris (Pan, 1953)

ALIAS THE SAINT tells of three adventures of Simon Templar.  In "The Story of a Dead Man' we find the Saint supervising an office in which many irregular things take place; there is a network of mystery about the firm of Vanney's Ltd. and Pamela Marlowe, who is employed there as a secretary, is very puzzled--as indeed she has a good reason to be, for she and the Saint are soon in a very dangerous situation, shared (curiously enough) by Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal of Scotland Yard.  "The Impossible Crime" displays the Saint pitting his wits against a gang of smuggling crooks; there is an amazing battle in a London square, where a night porter is shot dead.  "The National Debt" opens with the Saint making a trip to a quiet seaside village, hot on the track of three men who have kidnapped a girl analytical chemist whom they hope to compel to carry out a nefarious scheme.

Oh look!  It's The Saint.  Younger readers might not have heard of him, but older readers over a certain age will probably remember him well.  They might even have watched a young Roger Moore playing The Saint (aka Simon Templar) in the TV series of the same name.

The three novellas in this collection come from fairly early on in The Saint's career.  They were first published in the early 1930s, and people who recall Templar's smoother, newer, incarnations might be surprised at how much of a roughneck he is in this book.  He is not adverse to working on the wrong side of the law, and is quite prepared to use lethal violence if he feels it is necessary.  It is quite clear that it is only his own cunning that keeps him safe from the law--as well as the villains he tackles.  Because, criminal though he is, Templar is also one of the Good Guys, and someone you'd want on your side when the going gets tough.

(This is a fairly early Pan paperback.  I only have one older in my collection!)

Dark Duet by Peter Cheyney (Fontana, 1963)

 

KANE looked at her appreciatively.  "I don't know whether anybody's ever told you, but you've got the swellest pair of legs I've ever seen" he said.  Valetta looked at him sideways along her dark eyelashes.  He thought she was very beautiful; her mouth delicate, sensitive, almost tremulous.  He could look at her for hours on end.  It was that sort of mouth...

And.... here we have some more fiction about World War II--in this case from the pen of pulp writer Peter Cheyney.  Firstly published in 1942, this book contains three linked novellas about two spies/assassins working for the British Government.  Though they are definitely working on the side of good, they are not particularly moral characters, nor do they operate by a gentlemanly code.  The whole thing is altogether more gritty than the previous generation of spy thrillers, and seems to have been influenced by hard-boiled detective fiction (another genre in which Peter Cheyney specialised!)

The Chequer Board by Nevil Shute (Pan, 1968)

Found at a Lifeline Bookfair, bundled with some other books by the same author:

 

THE CHEQUER BOARD

'One of them was a Negro from America,' Turner said.  'The last one to go out... Dave Lesurier, his name was... Then there was Duggie Brent - he was a corporal in the paratroops.  And then there was the pilot of the aeroplane... Flying Officer Morgan.  We was all in a mess one way or another, excepting him, and yet in some ways he was in a worse mess than the lot of us.' 

THE CHEQUER BOARD

Brilliantly interweaving the chequered fates of four men brought together by one violent moment in war, this unforgettable story matches A TOWN LIKE ALICE with its heart-stirring romance, its rich humanity and compelling drama.

World War II was a major influence on Nevil Shute's writing--all his best known novels involve the war in one way or another.  However, he wasn't a writer of straight combat stories.  No, Shute's fiction is mostly about the civilians caught up in the war, and the human effects on the men who have to fight it.

And that brings me to The Chequer Board, which deals with four men in wartime.  Three are in trouble with the law--and the fourth is just in trouble.   The book tells the story of how they got into trouble and what happened to them afterwards (spoiler alert--it ends happily for most of them!)  Of the four stories I enjoyed the one about Dave Lesurier--the 'negro from America'--most, and the culture clash between a small Cornish village and the US Army base that has been planted upon it.

The Chequer Board was first pubished in Great Britain in 1947.