"Doctor Cockaigne" by N.E. Davies (Methuen, 1930)

Found on the "Vintage" table at the Lifeline Bookfair.  It appears to be a first (and only?) edition, and wonder of wonders, it has its dust jacket intact!

PROFESSOR SARQUE is found dead at his private laboratory at Berkeley College, killed by an overdose of a new alkaloid which he had recently discovered.  Is his death accident, suicide—or murder?  For those who seek thrills, here are thrills in plenty.  For those who would exercise their wits, here is a wonderful opportunity.

Just a quick note before I start: I left this blog dormant for a while because I wasn't sure what to do with it.  On the one hand, you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover.  On the other hand, I was buying these vintage books for their covers (or dust jackets in the case of hardbacks!)  So I decided I'd split my commentary into two parts: "Judging the Cover" and "Judging the Book".  Of course I'm going to add my usual snippets of random snark as I go along!

So to begin...

Judging the Cover

And my, what a fascinating cover we have to kick off with!  There's drama galore as a sinister man appears to be about to hurl an unconscious young woman off the parapets of a castle.  Is he a criminal mastermind?  A mad scientist?  The villain's hapless henchman?  Who is the young woman, and how did he get hold of her?  This dust jacket could easily double as a contemporary movie poster advertising a horror film.  From Universal Studios, maybe, and staring Boris Karloff...

Judging the Book

The "Methuen Clue Stories" series was set up to discover and publish new authors.  Dr Cockcaigne is therefore N.E. Davies' first—and possibly only—book.   It has the sort of faults a novice writer produces: improbable incident piled on improbable incident, and enough coincidences to supply the complete works of Dickens!  On the other hand, it moves at a fast and entertaining pace and there's an excellent surprise twist at the end.  I had to go through the book again once I'd read it to realise the clues had been there all along, and I'd missed them!

The Right Hand of Dextra, and, The Gods of Xuma by David J. Lake (DAW, 1977 and 1978)

TO THE PURPLE BORN

The key to life on Earth is the DNA helix, which determines all the characteristics of every living thing.  The helix, a series of molecules within the life cell, is a spiral—with a left-hand turn.

The planet called Dextra could have been a duplicate of Earth.  It teemed with life, both fauna and flora.  But on Dextra the helix of life had a right-hand thread.  And there could be no viable combination between the two life forms, the native and the invading Terran. 

So it became a battle on the part of the colonists to uproot the native Dextran ecology—purple plants and beasts with surprising intelligence—and replace it with Earth-born green.  But the planet fought back in its own way.  And the result is a science fiction novel that is unusual, exciting, and highly original. 

(I'm tempted to make a joke about Dextra's right hand, but all I'll say is that there's some very strategically placed vegetation on this cover.  Moving right along...) 

BARSOOM REVISITED?

If the universe is infinite, it follows that there may be somewhere real physical worlds that duplicate those of the imagination.  And when Tom Carson caught sight of the third planet of 83 Eridani he recognized at once its resemblance to that imaginary Mars called "Barsoom" of the ancient novelist Burroughs.

Of course there were differences, but even so this planet was ruddy, criss-crossed with canals, and its inhabitants were redskinned, fought with swords, and had many things superficially in common with the fantasy Mars of the John Carter adventures. 

But there were indeed vital variations that would eventually trip up the self-deceived science-fiction-reading travellers from 24th century Earth.  Therin hangs a tale that will delight and surprise everyone who enjoys the thrill of exploring a new world, especially one that seems peculiarly familiar.

(Why is our hero wearing ski boots on a desert planet?)

By the 1970s paperback covers had grown exceedingly dull—except for the genres of fantasy, science fiction and (oddly enough) gothic romance.  These DAW covers with their bright colours and exotic creatures are definitely eye-catching!

"The Case of the Smoking Chimney" by Erle Stanley Gardner (Horwitz, 1963)

Found at the Lifeline Bookfair. Where else?

Millions of readers throughout the world read the cases of wily lawyer-detective Perry Mason and follow his brilliant courtroom career on television.

Here is another fast-moving story of Erle Stanley Gardner's famous hero.

This blurb on the back cover literally says nothing but: Here is another Perry Mason adventure.  But what else do you need to say?

(Oh, and it ties it in nicely with the Perry Mason TV series by depicting our hero on the cover looking suspiciously like Raymond Burr!)

Murder by the Pack by Carl G. Hodges (Original Novels Foundation, 1960?)

Found in a dusty corner of the Green Shed:

They got to Cochran just outside the safety of his home.  And when Bob Ruff got there his pal was sprawled out on the sidewalk—dead with nine bullets in his body. 

The tough shamus owed his life to the murdered man and he vowed this was one gang-killing that was going to be avenged. 

Ruff figured he was going up against vicious opposition, but he didn't know just how vicious until he met a girl on the run. 

Cherry Morgan knew more about the rackets than was good for her health.  And when Ruff learned the score he knew that every moment they both lived from then on was on borrowed time!

Though a lot of these digest sized novellas were published in Australia in the 1950s and 1960s, not many of them have survived.  They appear to have been throwaway material—quick and easy reads for commuters on their journeys to and from work.  I read this on the bus this morning and it was just the thing for the journey: an absorbing page turner that was small enough to stuff into a bag or a pocket when I reached my stop!

Dark Duet by Peter Cheyney (Pan, 1958)

(For the Fontana edition of the same book, go here.)

COUNTER ESPIONAGE!

IN THIS BUSINESS YOU'RE EITHER A BRAVE MAN ... OR A DEAD ONE

A look of intense surprise came over Mrs Marques's face.  Then her mouth opened.

Her face twisted in supreme agony for a split second; then she slumped sideways on the settee.

You have to be as tough as seven devils in hell for Process 5 ... but it's artistic.

"Process 5" is murder... of course!

Terror at Seacliff Pines by Florence Hurd (Manor Books, 1976)

A large scary house in the background?  A pretty young woman in the foreground?  This has got to be a Modern Gothic novel.

HOUSE OF TERROR

When young Jennifer inherited an old and sprawling mansion on the rocky California coast, a whole new world opened up to her.  She planned to sell the house, to travel, to do what she had always dreamed of.

But when she arrived at Seacliff Pines, her dreams became visions of hell.  For the house was tainted with the touch of death and alive with the whispers of madness...

It's a slightly unusual cover, because Our Heroine isn't running away from her "HOUSE OF TERROR" so much as standing around contemplating running away from it.  Or maybe walking away from it very, very slowly...

(I won't go into to the plot.  Suffice it to say it is resolved with very bizarre twist!)

Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck (Pan, 1958)

Found in a corner of The Green Shed:

Boisterous, Light-hearted, Impudent! 

High spirits, robust and tender humour, in this gay story by America's famous novelist

JOHN

STEINBECK

AT Cannery Row, derelict Californian seaside town, Doc's friends are worried.  Doc's a scientist who makes a scanty living by collecting and selling marine specimens.  He's unhappy, needs looking after.

What to do?  Marry him off, of course. But to whom?  Well, there's the new girl at the house called Bear Flag.  She's tough and pretty, and not really good at her job because "she's got a streak of lady in her." 

Will Doc take her on?  Suzy is suspicious, Doc needs prodding.  But when Suzy goes to live respectably in an abandoned boiler, things start moving. 

Warning: not for the prudish!

I'm not a big fan of Steinbeck, but I love this cover.  Artist: Cy Webb.

Return to the Stars by Edmond Hamilton (Lancer, 1969)

Found at a charity book fair.  Someone had evidently been keen on traditional space opera, because I managed to find a number of vintage paperbacks like this one.

KINGDOM OF THE STARS

John Gordon, twentieth century Earthman, is torn from his own time to a far distant future--a time when the entire galaxy is inhabited.  But men do not rule the future; our race is only one among thousands, and many of those thousands are sworn enemies of humanity!  Gordon, man of the past, is forced to form alliances with the men of the future in a desperate battle to save the human race from final annihilation...

The cover is all 1960s, but the stories inside date from 1947!

A Cure for Serpents by Alberto Denti di Pirajno (Pan, 1957)

 

 Breath taking in its frank and joyous account of extraordinary adventures, this book is the fruit of many years spent in the former North African colonies of Italy. The Duke's medical skills and genius for friendship made in welcome in gorgeous palace and humble tent. He tells of:

• His patients in closely guarded harems
• The veiled Tuaregs and their 'courts of love'
• The Negress who charmed poisonous scorpions
• The Arab with a serpent in his stomach
• The strange life and death of a pet lioness 

The author, whose dukedom was created in 1642 by Philip IV, King of Spain and Sicily, joined the Italian Colonial Administration after five years' service in Africa as a doctor, and in 1941 became Governor of Tripoli.

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 Saint and Scotland Yard by Leslie Charteris (Pan, 1951)

THE SAINT VERSUS SCOTLAND YARD (originally entitled The Holy Terror), tells how Simon Templar relieves crooks of their ill-gotten gains and, while thus helping Chief Inspector Teal of Scotland Yard, at the same time receives a fair proportion for himself and his girl assistant Patricia Holm.  Part I tells how he settles accounts with a professional blackmailer and murderer called the Scorpion and is thereby enabled to pay his income-tax.  In Part II he foils a giant currency swindle, but incidentally leaves a dead man and other casualties to be explained by the exasperated Teal.  In Part III he confronts two diamond-smuggling gangsters after a murder in a train ; Inspector Teal butts in and is fooled, while the Saint takes one of the gangsters on a wild car-ride ; Teal is finally checkmated on the great liner Berengaria and is left to open a strangely filled trunk labelled with his name.

The copy on the back cover of this book is so exhaustive it reads more like a synopsis than a blurb!  The Saint vs Scotland Yard is comprised of three loosely-connected novellas, in which Simon Templar foils the villains and the law, and escapes with the loot.  And his "girl assistant"?  Actually it's made clear that she is his live-in lover, an arrangement that is common today, but must have raised a few eyebrows back when this was written.

No wonder "The Saint" series became so popular.  The character must have been so much fun for respectable and law-abiding citizens to identify with!

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...

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.)

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.

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:

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!

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?

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!