The Devil Loves Me / Down Among The Dead Men

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Two Complete Detective Books November 1943
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The Devil Loves Me

The wedding was so gay—such a colorful occasion—why was the bridesmaid poisoned? Dr. Paul Prye, psychoanalyst and amateur detective, was the groom. Why wasn’t he more upset? Duncan Stevens was the best man. Why was his skull caved in? There was another man—he got a bullet in his brain. And another—sandbagged and crammed into a rumble seat—say, what is this? A wedding? Or a funeral? What terrible and ghastly thing was footing its bloody way through that very nice house in that very nice section of Toronto? Truly, the Devil was in love with it, whatever it was. Dreadful premonitions were shaking the sixty-year-old bones of Aspasia O’Shaughnessy. And complete terror stalked the rest of the household. Except one. That one was redheaded. That one got mad . . . Inspector Sands could cut through red tape, could slash at the veil of snobbery drawn by the murderer. But he needed Paul Prye—and the one who got mad . . . 

Down Among The Dead Men

Plenty of dead ones get dragged out of the dark, roily water that runs through the greatest city in the world. The Harbor Police take only routine notice. But when the cadaver comes in installments—a torso, a leg, an arm—that’s murder . . . There are lots of murders, sure, but what made Lieutenant Steven Koski do a double-take on this particular butchery was the gadget that came with the torso. In its own frightful little way it was a weapon—the kind of weapon that kills a lot of people kind of quick. And Koski began to move—but fast. The murder marathon took him from a Coast Guard auxiliary vessel (cargo: one stunning blonde) to a waterfront dive. From a union leader’s hangout to an executive’s luxurious office. From a Chinese laundry to a ship being loaded with sudden death . . . And all the way, a long thin shape, detestable and horrible, paced him. Koski drove himself frantically onward. He had to catch that thing—had to . . .

This entire issue can be downloaded here

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Love Hunters

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The pulse-stopping story of a decent town’s struggle against its own sin-bent people
The surfing crowd started early and loved fast — as it love were going out of style

From the back:

The Town Was Shocked…
at its wealthy young beachniks like Angela Pencoast, who offered her husband to other women but held on to her lovers, like teenage Sara, who fled from boys to men in her desperate search for happiness,  like Paul Kemp, who was living down a legend of lawless love, like big kid Stoney, who liked older men’s wives.
The Town Was Shocked…
by its own “good” people like married Helen Quinn, who found a new young love on the beach, like Helen’s husband, Harry, who hunted for young girls on the beach, like Grant Rennick, who could not trust himself on the beach, like Jessa, Grant’s wife, who trusted herself — too much to stay faithful?
The Wild And Wealthy Surfing Crowd Flipped the Town As If It Were A Coin. It Fell Right-Side Up — But Only After Ridding Itself Of The Surf Angels

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The Whole Town Knew (Original Title: The Yeller-Headed Summer)

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Every Man Was Her Favorite

From the back:

SHE COULDN’T HELP HERSELF

It wasn’t that Faye Williams was bad at heart — she just couldn’t help herself. She was the daughter of one of the town’s Good Families, and she took refuge in drinking in her rebellion against all the hypocrisy she saw around her.

Trouble started when she was attacked and killed by three young punks. Then all the rottenness and corruption of the town came out. To make things worse, Jack Winters, the white trash constable, had to go and shoot his mouth off…

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Border Town Girl (1956)

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Popular Library 750 1956
Popular Library 750 1956 back cover

There Was No Turning Back For Her

From the back:

THE PLACE: A shabby border town on the Rio Grande
THE PEOPLE:

DIANA — a stranger is town, and alone.
FELICIA — the hot-blooded Mexican tart, who led men astray.
SANDY — the girl with a passionate past.
LANE — who couldn’t resist a beautiful dame . . . until he was tricked into a vicious narcotics and murder frame-up.

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Hard Case Crime

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Hard Case Crime is dedicated to reviving the vigor and excitement, the suspense and thrills—the sheer entertainment—of the golden age of paperback crime novels, both by bringing back into print the best work of the pulp era and by introducing readers to new work by some of today’s most powerful writers and artists. Determined detectives and dangerous women… fortune hunters and vengeance seekers… ingenious criminals and men on the run… Hard Case Crime novels offer everything you want from a great story, all in handsome and affordable editions.

Hard Case publishes great books with amazing covers. I have featured a few of their titles here before, but I was not having much luck finding decent scans of most of their covers. So, I wrote to the editor, Charles Ardai, and asked for the original cover images. And he actually said yes! Charles is a man who clearly appreciates pulp cover art, as you can see in this extensive interview he did with Killer Covers, and he has put together an peerless collection of covers from some of the best artists working today.

So, I am proud to present what might be a PulpCovers.com exclusive: the complete collection of Hard Case Crime covers in their original, digital, non-scanned glory. Enjoy!

The Moon Terror & Other Stories

The Moon Terror & Other Stories 1927

The Moon Terror & Other Stories is a hardcover collection of four early stories from Weird Tales magazine from its first year of publication (1923). It was issued in 1927 by the publisher of Weird Tales.

Since its initial publication in as a two-part serial in 1923, readers of Weird Tales had sent in letters making repeated requests asking for the short novel The Moon Terror to be reprinted. Unfortunately, by the time the publishers finally got around to reprinting the story in book form in this collection in 1927, interest in The Moon Terror had waned (one factor being that Amazing Stories had come into existence in 1926 and was publishing similar SF horror tales).

So despite the publisher’s initial great hopes for The Moon Terror & Other Stories, the book proved to be a fiasco. It took years for it to sell out despite being peddled for $1.50 a copy in Weird Tales (usually in a prominent back cover ad) on into the 1930s. It was eventually given away free with a subscription to the magazine to try to dispose of the unsold copies.

This entire book can be downloaded here.