Thursday, April 26, 2018

The Valley of the Ghosts by Edgar Wallace (Pan, 1959)

Another Lifeline Bookfair find:


Something brooding...
something evil....
'There's something evil about it, he said.  'Queer word for me to use, MacLeod, eh?  They touch your elbow as you walk—ghosts!  That's how I've named it the Valley of the Ghosts.  Go and stay a day or so in Beverley Green and smell it for yourself—something brooding...'
DR ANDREW MACLEOD, pathologist and detective extraordinare, was never one to refuse a challange...

Friday, April 20, 2018

The Privateer by Josephine Tey (Pan, 1967)

Thanks to the Green Shed, where I found this one:


The thrilling, swashbuckling story of Henry Morgan...
A freed bondsman, he captured his first Spanish ship with eleven men.
He became the scourge of Spain from the West Indies to Panama. 
He found romance but the sea always called him back to new, ever more daring adventures. 
Set against the stirring background of 300 years ago when dashing privateers risked their lives for treasure and conquest, this exciting book by a famous historical novelist is compellingly readable... vividly alive.

Ahhhrrr!  Buckle me swash, and set me mainsails!  It's a "based on a true story" historical novel, which means most of the people are real, and some of the events, but it's all highly romanticised.  The author, by the way, is better known for her mysteries than for her historical romances!  And a warning—some of the attitudes in this book are not politically correct by modern standards, and may even cause offence.

(The cover looks a bit strange in this scan because a previous owner had covered the book in plastic, and I couldn't remove it without damaging the cover.)


Friday, April 13, 2018

Computer War and Code Duello by Mack Reynolds (Ace Double, 1973)

Ooh, look, it's an Ace Double!


THE ODDS WERE RIGHT FOR VICTORY
The problem with computer warfare is that the computer is always logical while the human enemy is not—or doesn't have to be.
And that's what the Betastani enemy were doing—nothing that the Alphaland computers said they would.  Those treacherous foemen were avoiding logic and using such unheard-of devices as surprise and sabotage, treason and trickery.  They even had Alphaland's Department of Information believing Betastani propaganda without even realising it.
Of course he still thought he was being loyal to Alphaland, because he thought one and one must logically add up to two.  And that kind of thinking could make him the biggest traitor of all.



Section G, the top secret security unit of United planets, had a special problem on their hands with the situation on Firenze.  And for that special problem , they gathered together the most unusual squad in Section G's unusual history.  It included:
A research scientist who could bend steel bars like rubber band—
A middle-aged lady with total total recall— 
An interplanetary cowboy whose bullwhip was deadlier than a ray gun— 
A brazen young lady acrobat who looked like an eight year-old kid— 
A mild young man who never lost a bet in his life— 
And the best pickpocket that ever lived. 
But Firenze with its CODE DUELLO  was to prove a match for the lot of them!

A late entry in the Ace Doubles series by an author with a sense of fun and a knowledge of history.  (Sometimes too much knowledge of history, as he stops to explain the historical parallels with what his characters are doing.)  However, for the most part these short novels are romps, blending the spy genre with space opera.  If you're looking for some light reading and a little bit of relief from the real world, you could do far worse than a book by Mack Reynolds.

Monday, March 26, 2018

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:



Friday, March 9, 2018

The Talisman Ring by Georgette Heyer (William Heinemann, 1949)

I found this one in an op shop on the outskirts of Melbourne.



"Miss Georgette Heyer's "The Talisman Ring' has the authentic 18th-century atmosphere; with its embroidered waistcoats, jewelled snuff-boxes, lace handkerchiefs, quizzing glasses and what-nots.  But inside her brocade coats and silken breeches she never fails to provide real flesh and blood animated by the ardours and foibles common nature in each and every period . . .  It is indeed compounded of all the time-honoured ingredients--love, adventure, murder, robbery, a missing jewel, and a woman's wit.  Could anyone ask more?"
--John O'London's Weekly.
It's the second printing of the first Australian edition of The Talisman Ring.

—And this book is still in print throughout the English speaking world today.  Unlike most of Georgette Heyer's romance-writing contemporaries, her books continue to sell well.  I suspect her sense of humour is to blame, because underneath the romantic trappings and historical trappings of her plots she never takes her characters too seriously!

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

The Toff Goes Gay by John Creasey (Hodder and Stoughton, 1955)

All right, I bought this one solely for its title.  Childish, I know!

Why was a terrified French girl found wandering in London's East End?  Was she really frightened or was she pretending?  The Toff was called upon to answer both questions. . . .
      A man who knew the truth was murdered in the East End.  A Mayfair woman, afraid for her life, yielded up a part of the answer.  But the Toff had to go to Paris and be furiously gay in the face of death before he fitted the final piece into the grim puzzle.

Also: is it just me, or does the girl on the front cover only have one leg?

Thursday, February 22, 2018

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!