Another Look: “The Sailcloth Shroud”

Warning: Artistic inspiration drawn from book titles may vary.



Left: The Sailcloth Shroud, by Charles Williams (Dell, 1961); cover artist Robert K. Abbett. Right: The Sailcloth Shroud, by Charles Williams (Pocket, 1972), with a cover illustration by Stanley Borack. (His original artwork can be seen here.)

READ MORE: “The Lost Classics of One of the 20th Century’s Great Hard-boiled Writers,” by Andrew Cartmel (CrimeReads).

Borack Captures Holland

Earlier today, Michael Stradford, the author of several books about ubiquitous American paperback cover model Steve Holland, posted a selection of captivating paintings by Brooklyn-born artist Stanley Borack (1927-1993). “He had a crisp, realistic style that captured emotion and movement convincingly,” Stradford writes of Borack. “As such, it makes sense that Steve Holland was his go-to model for many years of paperback and magazine cover work.” As Stradford concludes, they “made a dynamic team.”

Curious Gems Amid the Jumble

Last November, I mentioned on this page that I was helping to clean out the phenomenally jam-packed residence formerly occupied by my wife’s mother and stepfather, both of whom have now passed away. Well, we’re now in the seventh month of that project—and probably halfway through, at best, though we’ve at least moved out of the garage and into the heated house. There’s just so much stuff to sort through and dispose of, and only a limited number of free hours that members of the family can devote to the cause. I can’t believe how many boxes we have already gone through of items—glassware, picture frames, stuffed toys, hard-to-recognize knick-knacks, etc.—that my mother-in-law purchased at garage or estate sales over the years, then stored away in corners of the house and never used. (The price tags are still on them!) And we haven’t yet touched the basement, which is stacked shoulder-high with boxes, containing 80 years of possessions from multiple households.

What makes this arduous experience bearable, is that I enjoy the other people who have volunteered to share the task. And every once in a while, I chance upon an item, usually squirreled away among well-thumbed magazines and other random clutter, that makes all of the lifting and hauling and dust-incited sneezing worthwhile.

Take, for instance, the copy I unearthed this last weekend of Ted Mark’s I Was a Teeny-Bopper for the CIA. I’d heard of this 1967 Berkley paperback novel, but never imagined that a copy (with its cover illustration by Stanley Borack) might someday fall into my hands.

“Ted Mark” was a pseudonym used by Theodore Mark Gottfried (1918-2004), a magazine editor and prolific author of non-fiction books for schoolchildren. Under the Mark moniker, though, he is most widely recognized for having penned a 15-book comedy spy-porn series starring sex researcher-cum-espionage agent Steve Victor, “The Man from O.R.G.Y.” (the Organization for the Rational Guidance of Youth). Teeny-Bopper was a standalone work, but no less steamy than its predecessors. In Black Gate, Sean McLachlan calls it “a fun bit of ’60s pulp with lots of cultural insights into a ‘square’s’ view of the anti-war movement and suburban spouse swapping.” Here he synopsizes the novel’s plot:

Vance Powers [is] a recently divorced corporate lawyer whose boring life gets turned upside down when a Congressman he knows hires him for a secret mission—infiltrate his local suburban amateur theatrical group in order to find some missing CIA money. Amateur theater, you see, is a front for the Commies, and the CIA operative who was investigating this group, Arch Fink, died recently. A bunch of CIA dough disappeared with him.

Powers joins the theater group and meets a menagerie of suburban types, most of whom are hopping into bed with one another. He soon hops into bed with Joy Boxx, a bored housewife and one of the many characters with joke names. The titular teeny-bopper is named Lolly Popstick! Anyway, Powers doesn’t get much joy from Boxx because his ex-wife has an almost psychic ability to call him long distance when he’s just about to have some fun. This happens all through the novel, meaning the sex scenes are all played for laughs. While this may have been a racy book for its day, it would barely get an R rating today and the sex is watered down even more with all the witty banter and slapstick acrobatics.

While Teeny-Bopper was definitely the weekend’s most unlikely discovery, it was not the only one worth mentioning.

In the course of digging through an upstairs bedroom, I found two small bookcases, the first of which revealed a 1947 Sun Dial Press reprint of Rogues’ Gallery, an Ellery Queen-edited anthology of stories built around crooks, rather than crime fighters—“the first of its kind,” according to the jacket copy. Among the authors represented in this thick volume: Dashiell Hammett, Dorothy L. Sayers, Leslie Charteris, Agatha Christie, and less-well-remembered writers on the order of Roy Vickers, H.B. Marriott Watson, and Arnold Bennett. Not far from the Queen release was a 1977 Doubleday hardcover copy (the book club edition) of Stephen King’s The Shining. I have to confess that, while I have watched the big-screen adaptation of King’s first best-seller, I have never read the original tale. So naturally, I scooped this one up for my own library.

Those same shelves offered a handful of entries from the early 20th-century Motor Boys series. I’d never heard of that Stratemeyer Syndicate line before. Wikipedia says it comprised 22 volumes (published between 1906 and 1924), all popular adventure yarns for boys, and all starring the trio of Bob Baker, “son of a rich banker”; Ned Slade, “son of the proprietor of a large department store”; and Jerry Hopkins, “son of a well–to–do widow.” The books were credited to “Clarence Young,” but that was apparently a Stratemeyer house name behind which labored several authors, principally (in the case of the Motor Boys) Howard R. Garis.

Because it was stuck away at the shadowy end of a bookcase’s bottom rack, I nearly missed spotting the pocket-size, red-covered 10th volume of The World’s Best One Hundred Detective Stories, edited by Eugene Thwing and published by Funk & Wagnalls in 1929. Sadly, I didn’t also locate the preceding nine volumes of that collection. However, the 10th includes short stories by the Baroness Orczy, Herbert Jenkins, and the “largely forgotten” Karl W. Detzer. It also boasts an author and title index to the whole collection, so I know what I’m missing. Among the other stories deemed the “best 100” are works by G.K. Chesterton, Octavus Roy Cohen, Anna Katharine Green, Freeman Wills Crofts, Marie Belloc Lowndes, and Vincent Starrett. There’s no Hammett here, but then the Black Mask bunch were often overlooked by literary critics in those days, and Hammett’s first novel, Red Harvest, had only just come out in 1929.

The balance of my latest surprise finds are all paperbacks: the 1969 release of Charlotte Armstrong’s The Balloon Man, with cover art by Harry Bennett; a distinctive 1970 Fawcett Crest edition of Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, also with a Bennett illustration; a 1958 copy of Divine Mistress, by Frank G. Slaughter (cover artwork by Charles Binger); Cardinal’s 1959 version of Frank Yerby’s The Foxes of Harrow (again fronted by a Binger painting); Pocket Books’ 1961 release of Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Case of the Green-Eyed Sister; and a 1966 edition of John D. MacDonald’s Cry Hard, Cry Fast.*

As I said before, we still have a long way to go before my in-laws’ house is clean, so there may be plenty of odd treasures yet to excavate. I’ll let you know what else I come across.

* Several sources around the Web claim the cover art on this Fawcett Gold Medal edition of Cry Hard, Cry Fast was painted by Robert McGinnis. But McGinnis expert Art Scott says that identification is incorrect.

Because I Needed a Gault Fix …

Run, Killer, Run, by William Campbell Gault (Dell, 1955).
Illustration by Stanley Borack.

Adultery, Murder, and Mirth

The Knife Slipped (Hard Case Crime, 2016), with a cover illustration by Robert McGinnis that features modern-day burlesque dancer/pin-up icon Dita von Teese.

Today marks the official publication date of The Knife Slipped (Hard Case Crime), Erle Stanley Gardner’s long-lost 30th installment in a series he wrote—under the pseudonym A.A. Fair—about mismatched Los Angeles private eyes Bertha Cool and Donald Lam. As I explained recently in my Kirkus Reviews column,

Apparently, Gardner concocted Knife as the second entry in this series, following 1939’s The Bigger They Come; but publisher William Morrow objected to its casting Mrs. Cool, a stout cheapskate of a woman who’d inherited her L.A. detective agency from an adulterous husband, as profane and not above gypping her clients. An Afterword in Knife speculates Morrow might have taken issue as well with Gardner’s portrayal of Lam’s fallibility, something that “brainy little runt” was less prone to in subsequent books. This rediscovered mystery begins with an overprotective mother and her daughter employing B. Cool—Confidential Investigations to look into the presumed philanderings of the younger woman’s spouse, Eben Cunner, who works for an automobile accessories wholesaler. Although Lam, a disbarred lawyer, is still learning the shamus game, he soon ferrets out the fact that Cunner has rented not one, but two, separate apartments under aliases. At one of those he’s been spotted with a comely blonde claiming to be his sister, and at both he has welcomed cops and firemen at odd hours. This is obviously not a simple hot-sheets case, but before our gumshoes can fathom its complexity, Cunner is murdered and suspicion falls on Lam and the chestnut-haired switchboard operator, Ruth Marr, who found the corpse. There are plenty of narrative contortions and distortions of the truth in these pages, but some semblance of justice is eventually reached.

Author Jeffrey Marks, who’s spent a great deal of time working on a new Gardner biography, spells out in his blog how his research into the life of that prolific California lawyer turned novelist finally brought The Knife Slipped—“the first new Erle Stanley Gardner novel since 1970”—to bookstores. He adds that “Over my time writing about Gardner, I came to appreciate the Cool/Lam novels more than Perry Mason. That might be sacrilege, but they represent a more hard-boiled, pulp-oriented story. Gardner had plenty of experience with those, writing 625+ shorter works for the pulps. Cool and Lam were the worthy successors to Ed Jenkins and Ken Corning. Gardner could be himself more in these books, and his infectious personality and wit come through in these books.”

To celebrate the tardy but certainly pleasing appearance of The Knife Slipped, I have gathered together, below, a handful of my other favorite covers from the Cool and Lam series.


Bats Fly at Dusk (Dell, 1963), art by Ron Lesser.



Beware the Curves (Pocket, 1960), art by Harry Bennett.



Double or Quits (Dell, 1963), art by Stanley Borack.



Some Women Can’t Wait (Dell, 1960), art by Robert McGinnis.



Spill the Jackpot (Dell, 1962), art by Harry Bennett.



The Count of Nine (Heinemann UK, 1959), art by Stein.



Top of the Heap (Dell, 1959), art by Robert McGinnis.



You Can Die Laughing (Pocket, 1961), art by Harry Bennett.

READ MORE: “A New (Old) Book Just Waiting to Become a TV Series,” by Ken Tucker (Yahoo TV); “Review: The Knife Slipped, by Erle Stanley Gardner,” by David Cranmer (Criminal Element); “The Knife Slipped—Erle Stanley Gardner,” by Bill Crider (Bill Crider’s Pop Culture Magazine).

Two-fer Tuesdays: Get Me Rewrite!

A twice-monthly pairing of book covers that just seem to go together. Click on either of these images to open up an enlargement.



My interest in journalism dates back to my college years. I had been given the chance to join the newspaper staff in high school, but since I was attending that Catholic institution solely for its educational opportunities (yes, I was a very serious young student), extracurricular activities had no place in my schedule. Not until I reached college and began living away from home did I allow myself to do things other than study. Joining the staff of that school’s weekly paper proved to be an excellent decision, not only because it showed me that I could make a living writing (the only thing I really dreamed of doing), but introduced me to a lively, intelligent bunch of co-workers and put me in the position of interviewing such famous visitors to the college as Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau, singer Sarah Vaughan, and Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee.

In the decades since, I’ve made some mistakes in my career and been disappointed at times with what the field offers, but I have mostly enjoyed the challenges. The two books under consideration here today, however, make me think I have lived an altogether sheltered and tame journalistic existence.

The Roving Eye, by Michel Wells (Ace, 1957), is described on its back cover as “an intimate peep into the plush jungle that is the hunting ground of the world’s highly paid foreign correspondents.

Men like Robert Adams, whose sensational stories might sell out an issue of a magazine, yet whose private life was a cauldron of secret ambitions and thwarted desires. Women like the gorgeous Natalie Connors, envied queen of magazine feature writers, who used her sex like a precision tool for personal advantage.

What happened when those two dynamic personalities clashed over a scandalous story that could blast the lid off a certain publisher is a tension-taut novel of the resorts of Mexico, the luxury towers of Manhattan, and the sensual byways of Paris.

The Roving Eye’s jaded protagonist, explained John Maxwell Hamilton in his similarly titled non-fiction work, Journalism’s Roving Eye: A History of American Foreign Reporting (2009), “travels with ‘guts, wits, and typewriter in hand.’ On the book’s cover a dark-haired beauty massages the correspondent’s back while he drinks wine and hammers out a story on his typewriter in a Paris hotel room. ‘Robert Adams’ adventures as he hunts down the real story--and the real truth--make a sensationally thrilling novel of one of the world’s most exciting professions,’ proclaims a promotional blurb.”

It’s an eye-catching cover, indeed, even though I can’t for the life of me figure out who painted it. Unfortunately, when digital publisher Singularity & Co. acquired the rights to The Roving Eye, it chose not to use the original book front, opting instead for a design that employs a rather famous photo of actress Ava Gardner.

Now let’s turn out attention to the second façade featured atop this post, from the 1962 Beacon Books release The Thrill Makers, by Brad Hart. The artwork in this case is credited to the prolific Stanley Borack. His illustration shows a youngish gent grinning in obvious satisfaction as he straightens his tie after what we can only presume was a sexual liaison with the underwear-clad woman on the bed. That man looks an awful lot like actor-model Steve Holland, who later provided Borack with inspiration when he painted the fronts of Ted Mark’s “Man from O.R.G.Y.” espionage yarns.

According to its cover teasers, The Thrill Makers is all about “what takes place behind the scenes at those Sexy Magazine editorial offices” where “cynical editors and photographers … will go to any lengths to satisfy thrill-seeking readers.” I was much too young to ever work for one of those Mad Men-era Sexy Magazines (don’t forget to capitalize both of those words!), but the back-jacket copy makes it sound like a wild time was had by one and all:

What is behind the tremendous success of today’s crop of Girlie Magazines? … Are such magazines deliberately being edited to stimulate and inflame senses to the point where anything can happen--and often does?

Here is the long suppressed story of such a magazine and the people who make it tick--you’ll meet …

Brad Carlton, who edited the magazine and insisted upon doing his own research.

Maureen Casey, the beauty who took strange delight in photographing other beauty--in the nude!

Ivory Black, who was a model of the art of cheese-cake and an avid student of other forms of art.

Sheila Tatum, who had some remarkable connections … and vices.

--Together they made Satyrus into a tremendous success!

Maybe more of a success than The Thrill Makers itself. As one Amazon reader-reviewer opines: “The Thrill Makers doesn’t really deliver on its promises, although if you want to get technical, it does in a way. What I mean is that, yes, you learn about the types of things that go on behind the scenes at a girlie magazine--business-type things, though, not sexy-time things. That isn’t to say this book is devoid of making the love, it’s just not in the context I was expecting it to be. The last half of the book is taken up almost wholly with legal issues. About as exciting as watching paint dry. Actually, I’d rather watch the paint. Two good things: Goat People and a Reasonable Person can be found within these pages. That makes it not as bad as it could be.”

Brad Hart is not a familiar author to me, but it turns out he penned at least one more novel, an equally male-oriented tale called Bella Vista’s Wives (1963). Perhaps that does a better job of delivering the sexy goods. Not that I’m anxious to track down a copy …

Make Love, Not War

As L.A. police detective-turned-crime novelist Paul Bishop recalled several years ago, “During the late sixties and early seventies a genre of soft-core James Bond/Man from U.N.C.L.E. pastiches hit the stands, each series often written by several different authors under a publishing house pseudonym. … Some series were better written than others--and some books within each series were better written than others--but all sold fairly well during their day.”

One of the best-remembered contributors to that salacious subgenre was Theodore Mark Gottfried (1918-2004), who supplemented his income as a magazine editor, writing teacher, and author of “numerous thought-provoking non-fiction books for middle-grade and high-school readers” by penning--under the pseudonym Ted Mark--“sexpionage” adventures featuring “The Man from O.R.G.Y.,” “The Girl from Pussycat,” and “The Man from Charisma.” In his obituary for the New York Sun, Stephen Miller focused particularly on Gottfried/Mark’s Man from O.R.G.Y. works:

The O.R.G.Y. books were so satirical--the immediate reference was to the series The Man from U.N.C.L.E.-- that not even their hero, the gamely named Steve Victor, took his missions seriously. “O.R.G.Y. is the Organization for the Rational Guidance of Youth,” Gottfried wrote by way of introduction to Here’s Your Orgy (1969). “It’s a one-man operation devoted to sex research with ‘guidance’ actually a secondary function--which I admit, hasn’t ever really been exercised. I see myself as carrying on the traditions of Dr. Kinsey. The difference is that I’ve cut out the paperwork and substituted a personalized methodology.”

Always topical, the action in the O.R.G.Y. books traipses lightly across the world stage, with a stop at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and even touching on the Tet Offensive, which takes on a new shade of meaning for “offensive”: “I was personally attacked by a Cong guerrilla complete with bayonet, black pajamas, and breasts shaped like hand grenades, only bigger and better.” In later years, when his writing had taken up more serious topics, Gottfried would say that he felt an uneasy combination of chagrin and pride in his pulp productions. Having become an ardent supporter of feminist causes, he felt he had portrayed women in too stereotypical a light. Yet, he was gratified that the books remained popular with pulp enthusiasts--they are a staple on eBay. The books were part of a minor brouhaha in 1969, when it was found that the Job Corps had been purchasing them for use in remedial reading classes.

There was even a theatrical film release in 1970 titled The Man from O.R.G.Y., based on Mark’s series, with the role of “spy and scientific investigator” Steve Victor going to Robert Walker Jr. (an actor probably most familiar nowadays for having guest-starred in a 1966 Star Trek episode titled “Charlie X”; more on that episode here).

But while few readers nowadays can be relied upon for the remotest memory of Ted Mark’s stories, I’m betting more will recognize the covers that appeared on those paperbacks, a number of them credited to artist Stanley Borack and featuring actor-model Steve Holland. Consider, for instance, the fronts of This Nude for Hire, The Nude Who Did, The Nude Who Never, My Son, the Double Agent, The Girl from Pussycat, and my personal favorite, The Pussycat Transplant (more about which you can read here). An additional assortment of Ted Mark book façades can be relished here.

And you can click here and here for lists of the Ted Mark novels. You never know: it might be worth watching for these in your travels through used-book stores.

READ MORE: “This Title Is Not to Be Seen by Unauthorized Persons,” by James Evans (Electric Sheep).

The Heat Is On: The Dreamers

Celebrating the delights of summer. Click here for the full set.



The Dreamers, by J. Bigelow Clark (Permabooks, 1955).
Illustration by Stanley Borack.

Panic in the Sheets

In November of last year (was it really that long ago?), I featured on this page a pairing of two covers from vintage paperbacks--Day Keene’s Dead in Bed and Ed Lacy’s Sin in Their Blood--that showed women reclined and notably deceased on bedsheets. I wasn’t aware at the time how common such a motif was in crime fiction. Since then, though, I have been collecting other examples of book-front art that show beds as risky places, rather than restful ones.

The cover above, for instance, comes from the 1949 Signet softcover edition of Bill S. Ballinger’s The Body in the Bed (1948), the first of his two books starring Chicago private investigator Barr Breed. (Breed’s second outing came in The Body Beautiful, released in 1949.) Unfortunately, the artwork decorating this Signet release is uncredited. That’s not the case for most of the fronts below, which carry illustrations by Victor Kalin, Robert McGinnis, Robert K. Abbett, Robert Schulz, Roger Kastel, and others.

Click on any of the covers here to open an enlargement.