All Alone, with Trouble in Mind

Book titles containing the word “widow” suddenly seem to be everywhere on my radar. March brought the publication of Alma Katsu’s “gripping, authentic spy procedural,” Red Widow (Putnam), and earlier this month saw the re-release (by Cutting Edge Books) of Louis Lorraine’s 1961 sleaze classic, Commuter Widow. Soon after I downloaded the inarguably not-safe-for-work front cover of that new Commuter Widow edition, I had cause to search for it again in my computer files … and came up with a slew of attractive vintage novels also featuring “widow” in their names.

I’m sorry to say that I don’t know the name of the artist whose remarkable work fronts the 1958 Crest printing of Richard Wormser’s The Widow Wore Red, shown above. But I can identify the painters of most of the paperback covers below, from Bill George (Black Widow, 1954) and Harry Barton (both the undated Exciting Widow and the yarn from which it swiped its art, 1963’s That Kind of Widow) to Ernest “Darcy” Chiriacka (Self-Made Widow, 1958, and 1963’s The Torrid Widow), Bob Hilbert (1953’s Night at the Mocking Widow), and Robert McGinnis (the undated Suddenly a Widow, by George Harmon Coxe, and 1966’s No Tears from the Widow, by Carter Brown).

Charles Copeland gave us the cover for Rick Holmes’ New Widow (1963), while Weekend Widows (1966) boasts a front painted by Al Rossi, and Paul Rader is credited with creating the image for Wayward Widow (1962). You’re looking at Clark Hulings’ work on 1957’s The Golden Widow, James Meese’s artistry decorating 1957 Pocket release of Ursula Curtiss’ The Widow’s Web, and the talents of Mort Engel showcased on the 1965 Ace version of that same Curtiss tale. Finally, Griffith Foxley was responsible for the painting that introduces the 1954 Dell release of Dolores Hitchens’ Widows Won’t Wait (a singularly Erle Stanley Gardner-ish title); Mitchell Hooks was behind the 1955 Bantam cover of The Widow and the Web, by Robert Martin; and the great Walter Popp imagined the candelabra-wielding redhead on Evelyn Bond’s Widow in White (1973).

Click on any of the images here for an enlargement.

READ MORE: “Review: The Widow,” by Steven J. McDermott (Mostly Old Books and Rust).

Because I Needed a Sterling Fix …

Nightmare at Noon, by “Stewart Sterling,” aka Prentice
Winchell (Dell, 1953). This is the fourth installment in a nine-book crime series starring New York City Chief Fire Marshal Ben Pedley. In addition to his best-known Sterling pseudonym, Winchell also wrote as Spencer Dean, Jay de Bekker, and Dexter St. Claire.
Illustration by Bob Hilbert.

Take Fives

As I note in today’s column for the Kirkus Reviews Web site, this month marks the conclusion of my fifth year of blogging about mystery, crime, and thriller fiction for that publication. I offer a few additional thoughts on this anniversary in The Rap Sheet, but for Killer Covers, no manner of celebrating seems quite so appropriate as to display vintage paperbacks that employ “five” in their titles.

For instance, The Five Faces of Murder, by Jay Flynn (Avon, 1962), features cover art by Robert Maguire, while the illustration introducing the 1959 Dell edition of The Five Pennies, Grady Johnson’s biography of American jazz cornettist Red Nichols, is credited to Victor Kalin. Jack Finney’s 5 Against the House (Pocket, 1955), is fronted by a George Erickson painting; John Klempner’s Letter to Five Wives (Dell, 1951) showcases artwork by Bob Hilbert; Griffith Foxley was responsible for the cover of Five Alarm Funeral, by Stewart Sterling (Dell, 1954); it’s James Meese’s talent behind the façade of Neither Five Nor Three, by Helen MacInnes (Popular Library, 1952); and the 1945 Avon Murder Mystery Monthly release of Raymond Chandler stories, Five Sinister Characters, puts up a good front by Paul Stahr. The cover of 5 Murderers, another collection in that same Avon line, might also have been executed by Stahr, though I find no confirmation of that credit online. And sadly, the illustrations decorating the final two novels shown below—The Late Mrs. Five, by Richard Wormser (Gold Medal, 1960), and The Man Who Held Five Aces, by Jean Leslie (Pocket, 1950)—are uncredited.

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

FOLLOW-UP: I’ve now found several places on the Web where Paul Stahr is credited as the cover artist for the above edition of 5 Murderers, so I guess we can assume he created it. Other examples of Stahr’s cover artwork can be found on Flickr.

Occult Following

What could be a more fitting accompaniment to today’s spooks-and-sweets-filled festivities than Andrew Nette’s splendid selection, in Pulp Curry, of vintage paperback fronts featuring Satanism, witchcraft, and black magic? The cover shown above, from the 1952 Dell paperback edition of Catherine Turney’s The Other One--a story of humiliation, possession, and the supernatural--isn’t among those Nette showcases, but it certainly could have been. The artwork is by Bob Hilbert, more of whose illustrations can be seen here.

By the way, The Other One was adapted in 1957 as a big-screen horror flick titled Back from the Dead. Turney herself inked the screenplay. According to this Los Angeles Times obituary, she had previously been the “chief architect of the script for [1945’s] Mildred Pierce, which earned [star Joan] Crawford an Academy Award.” Turney subsequently wrote for TV series such as Maverick and Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.

Friday Finds: “The Gallows in My Garden”

Another in our growing line of vintage book covers we love.



The Gallows in My Garden (Dell, 1953), by Richard Deming.
Illustration by Bob Hilbert.

Kevin Burton Smith of The Thrilling Detective Web Site refers to Manville Moon as “one of the great unknown series [private] eyes that somehow slipped through the cracks.” This shamus is known to be “tough, honest, and handy with the wisecracks,” but he was also seriously wounded in combat during World War II. “He’s got a grim contraption of cork, steel, aluminum and leather, where his right leg used to be …,” notes Smith, “and a face a woman once referred to as [looking like that of] ‘a battered Saint Bernard.’” Although Manny Moon appeared in many short stories, during the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, in such publications as Black Mask, Manhunt, and Dime Detective, there are only four Moon novels; The Gallows in My Garden was the first, originally published by Rinehart & Company in 1952. (Tweak the Devil’s Nose, Whistle Past the Graveyard, and Juvenile Delinquent all followed it into print within the next half-dozen years, though that last yarn was published only in Great Britain.)

Reviewing Gallows (way too briefly), Kirkus Reviews wrote:

Manville Moon, Confidential Investigator with a false leg, is hired by inheritance-loaded Grace Lawson, promptly attacked and immediately on hand for the death of her brother. Another killing, attempts on Grace’s life, [and] light on the previous death of her father, all add up to a devious bit of long-term plotting by a criminal who is saved by lack of evidence. Nimble--and breezy.”

A GoodReads contributor had this to add:

There is comedy and humor [in Gallows] that reminds me of Ken Bruen and Jason Starr, and Moon is always the wise guy. But there is gripping action and suspense. The novel is plot-driven, and the ending was a surprise to me, but the characters are also interesting. Recommended, particularly for readers looking for something different.

Surprisingly, I haven’t written about American artist Bob Hilbert until now. Not that I know much of his personal or career history. (If you do, please share!) I am aware, though, that during the mid-20th century he was very busy in commercial illustration and created some very memorable images for The Saturday Evening Post, Esquire, The American Weekly, and other periodicals. You can see some of Hilbert’s magazine work here and here. A handful of his paperback covers can be appreciated here.