Paperback 869: N Or M? / Agatha Christie (Dell 187)

Paperback 869: Dell 187 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: N Or M?
Author: Agatha Christie
Cover artist: Gerald Gregg

Estimated value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• Norm!
• The cigarette is puzzled. "What the hell does 'NORM' mean?" it wonders.
• Design on this is so bizarre. Everything's laid out at odd angles, the cigarette ashes have an eerie, vermiform look to them, and the whole thing kinda looks like a white whale with "NorM" tattooed to the side of its face is trying to fight the scourge of smoking by devouring all related paraphernalia in its sight.
• Gerald Gregg is a cover artist god. As early, non-sexy paperback covers go, his weird abstractions are my favorite.

Best things about this back cover:

• Mappington! Backington! These never get old.
• If you call your place "Smuggler's Rest," the cops *are* going to find you.
• "Road." LOL. Thanks, map!
• If the devil doesn't live at Sans Souci, he will soon.

Page 123~

"Friends of friends of yours, I think you said?" Tommy suggested mendaciously.

Tommy always was a mendacious little bastard. I've always said that about him.

~RP

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Paperback 849: Warrant for X / Philip MacDonald (Pocket Books 328)

Paperback 849: Pocket Books 328 (1st ptg, 1945)

Title: Warrant for X
Author: Philip MacDonald
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $10-15


Best things about this cover:

• "Light, damn you! Stupid modern, flame retardant bodies! I want s'mores now!"
• By far the fanciest lamppost you're likely to see on any of my covers.
• I genuinely love how the body spills out of frame. And the color scheme. And the "X".

Best things about this back cover:

• "Kidnapping!" is pretty anti-climactic. "Cannibalism!" was about what I was expecting with that build-up.
• They used to tell you how much it would cost to ship the book to a soldier overseas. Now it's just "Share it with anyone in a uniform, don't ask us what it costs, how should we know?" I hope people gave books to their diner waitresses.

Page 123~

He said: "I'm a busy man. Great matters hang upon my every word and action." He drank coffee. "I might justly be likened to the spider."

Though not lacking in confidence, Anthony was still working on his metaphor skills.

~RP

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