The cover for Arnold Marmor's Ruthless Fraternity features possibly the least hidden camera in paperback history, but you have to love the art anyway. We've seen several blackmail covers, and they're tricky in that the artists are constrained by having to show both the camera and the intended victim of the set-up. It always turns out ridiculous in terms of believability, but they're always fun covers. The fraternity of the title is not literal. It refers to the proverbial journalistic boys club, and the story deals with the ins and outs, double-dealing, and machinations of a scandal magazine called Tell. We've featured Arnold Marmor books twice before, but had no idea how prolific the guy was. He wrote such sleazers as Bed Bait, Lust Lodge, and Boudoir Treachery, but also dabbled in spy novels and short stories. We'll probably run into him at a later date. This effort was 1960 and the art is by Bill Edwards. 

This is an interesting cover for the 1962 novel Sweet Smell of Lust by Arnold Marmor, with its mirror perspective and extra large Oscar standing on the bureau. Basically, it's the story of two women vying for the same plum film role. One woman is older, desperate, and ruthless enough to pull dirty tricks for the role, while the other is young and naive to the point that she'll do whatever she's asked, even if it means ending up on her back. There's something in the air indeed—pheromones. Agents, directors, criminals, hardcore partiers, and the obligatory oversexed lesbian round out the cast. There are numerous vintage books in this Hollwood sleaze category, so many that the genre cries out for a cover collection. Maybe we'll put one together. 

This post was long overdue. Most pulp oriented websites do a collection of covers that have the word wanton in the title, so we're following suit. Basically because we couldn't think of anything else to do today. Numerous examples below. Enjoy.

Our American vacation continues as we leave Denver behind and head to San Francisco. In the meantime here’s a random sleaze paperback we spotted yesterday, a little something from Vega Books called All for One. Author Arnold Marmor worked during the ’50s and ’60s, producing titles such as Boudoir Treachery, Abnormal Desire, and Lust Lodge. He also wrote a couple of books in the Nick Carter series. This particular effort, with its voyeur-themed cover art by unknown, appeared in 1962.