Paperback Gallery: FRANK FRAZETTA

Paperback Gallery: FRANK FRAZETTA

Paperback Gallery: DELL WESTERNS

Paperback Gallery: BOGART MOVIES

Paperback Gallery: FRANK FRAZETTA

JAMES BOND Great Pan Covers

Frank McCarthy's 007 Art

Casino Royale

Doctor No

From Russia with Love

Goldfinger

a book for dog lovers

Hammett Mapback: A Man Called Spade

I still remember the surprise, when I came across this paperback back in the 70s, that Hammett had written three Sam Spade short stories. And I still remember the disappointment that they were not absolutely fabulous. This time around, though, I had lower expectations, and was once again surprised. The stories were better than I remembered.

Two of the Spade tales, the title story and "They Can Only Hang You Once," were still just average. It was nice to see Spade again, and Effie Perine, and Homicide dicks Dundy and Polhaus, but there's nothing really setting them apart from other similar pulp characters. These stories could have been penned by other hardboiled writers of the time and gone unnoticed.  The only thing that really jumped out as vintage Hammett was this paragraph from "They Can Only Hang You Once":

"The butler - his name's Jarbo - was in here when he heard the scream and shot, so he says. Irene Kelly, the maid, was down on the ground floor, so she says. The cook, Margaret Finn, was in her room - third floor back - and didn't even hear anything, so she says. She's deaf as a post, so everybody else says. The back door and gate were unlocked, but are supposed to be kept locked, so everybody says. Nobody says they were in or around the kitchen or yard at the time." Spade spread his hands in a gesture of finality. "That's the crop."

But there was something different about the third story, "Too Many Have Lived." It started off with a little Hammett magic, and held up well right to the end. I had the feeling Hammett was enjoying himself with this story, while the other two seemed a chore.  Here's the opening paragraph:

The man's tie was as orange as a sunset. He was a large man, tall and meaty, without softness. The dark hair parted in the middle, flattened to his scalp, his firm, full cheeks, the clothes that fit him with noticeable snugness, even the small, pink ears flat against the sides of his head - each of these seemed but a differently colored part of one same, smooth surface. His age could have been thirty-five or forty-five.

Another major difference in this story is that Spade is on the move, seeing the case and the characters from different angles. The other two stories are basically talkfests, where Spade figures things out after the real stories are over. This is illustrated quite well on the map above. "A Man Called Spade," (the longest of the tales) takes place almost entirely in this apartment.

The Spade stories originally appeared in American Magazine and Colliers in 1932. This 1945 paperback was a reprint of the Mercury Mystery digest collection published a year earlier, but was a more attractive package. It also includes "The Assistant Murderer," a fine 1926 Black Mask story about a P.I. named Alexander Rush, and another Collier's story called "His Brother's Keeper."

The Art of The Big Sleep

In hauling my old mystery paperbacks out of storage and giving them the once-over, I was struck by how few Raymond Chandler covers actually pictured Philip Marlowe. Thinking a little deeper, I realized how rare Marlowe illustrations really are. Near as I can tell, Marlowe never officially appeared in the pulps. The Black Mask and Dime Detective stories Chandler used to create his novels had detectives with names like Mallory, Carmady and Dalmas, so there are no pulp illos at all. I was pleased to find these two covers of The Big Sleep, which feature at least limited views of Mr. Marlowe.

Pocket Book 696, from 1950, is the best Marlowe image I've found so far. It's based on the following passage: On a sort of low dais at one end of the room there was a high-backed teakwood chair in which Miss Carmen Sternwood was sitting on a fringed orange shawl. She was sitting very straight, with her hands on the arms of the chair, her knees close together, her body stiffly erect in the pose of an Egyptian goddess, her chin level, her small bright teeth shining between her parted lips. Her eyes were wide open. The dark slate color of the Iris had devoured the pupil. They were mad eyes. She seemed to be unconscious, but she didn’t have the pose of unconsciouness. She looked as if, in her mind, she was doing something very important and making a fine job of it. Out of her mouth came a tinny chuckling noise which didn’t change her expression or move her lips. She was wearing a pair of long jade earrings. They were nice earrings and had probably cost a couple of hundred dollars. She wasn’t wearing anything else.

Pocket Book 2696, 1958, presents the same two characters from another scene: The bed was down. Something in it giggled. A blond head was pressed into my pillow. Two bare arms curved up and the hands belonging to them were clasped on top of the blond head. Carmen Sternwood lay on her back in my bed, giggling at me. The tawny wave of her hair was spread out on the pillow as if by a careful and artificial hand. Her slaty eyes peered at me and had the effect, as usual, of peering from behind a barrel. She smiled. Her small sharp teeth glinted. “Cute, aren’t I?” she said.