The Widow is typical Orrie Hitt sleaze about a man torn between nice but sexy Norma, and bad girl Linda, whose husband leaves the narrative early when he cracks up his hot rod. The main character Jerry, a widower who hasn't been the same since that tragic event, soon finds himself not only caught between the nice girl and the new widow, but being pushed into a murder-for-money plot. This is always a bad idea, but reading Hitt is sometimes a good one, as long as you can appreciate his unique stories without being too concerned with writing ability. We just scored eight of his books, so you'll be hearing about him in more detail. 1959 on this one, with uncredited cover art. 

A couple of days ago we shared a cover painted by Harry Barton, and today we're back with assorted examples in the same vein, once again showing instances of neck kissing, or variations very close to that. All of these were also painted by Barton, who clearly had a fine appreciation for female necks. Or male mouths. Whichever.

Barton was a prolific artist who through the ’50s and ’60s produced covers for Avon, Bantam, Dell, Monarch, and Pocket Books. He painted even more fronts with poses close to those seen here, for example men and women kissing normally, but today we decided to stick only to neck kissing. Which by the way is a nice way to spend a few minutes if you have a willing partner.

A beautiful girl named Cherry Gordon who was abandoned by her birth mother and raised by adoptive parents gets into the porn racket, lets booze take over her life, runs afoul of the law, and even descends so far into depravity as to consort with lesbians. All this happens because she wants to be a singer and actress—so let it be a lesson never to follow your dreams. The story is written from Cherry's point of view, which is hilarious considering how little feel as a writer trashmaster deluxe Orrie Hitt has for women. But what does have plenty of feel is Paul Rader's cover for this 1963 Beacon Signal edition. No trash there.

In honor of the World Series and all the unintentionally sexual terminology you hear on sports broadcasts—and he manages to squirt that one up the middle!—we thought we’d share this cover for Kozy Books’ sleaze novel Squeeze Play. It was written by Walter Feldspar, whose name is a pseudonym of course, but we don’t know who occupied it. Orrie Hitt is a prime suspect though. Whoever it was, we have to give credit for cleverness—feldspar is a mineral that has no value but makes up the majority of earthly rock. He’s doubtless saying the same about his fiction—no value, but can be found everywhere.

Given enough time anything can accumulate value, though, and such is the case with ’60s sleaze fiction. Kozy output seems more popular all the time, so in acknowledgment of that fact we have a selection of their covers below. You would not necessarily call these pieces completely successful, with their often unreadable yellow-on-white or orange-on-orange text, but in terms of promoting the product the covers told you exactly what you were going to get. The company had a habit of not crediting art, so we’ve nothing for you there. But enjoy the selection anyway, and if you want to see a real Kozy winner, check here.

A couple of months ago we mentioned the popularity of keyhole themed pulp art and said we’d gather some examples. Well, today’s the day. Below are fifteen pieces of keyhole cover art for your enjoyment.

Sleaze covers have a way of making light of what would be horrifying in real life and this piece by an uncredited artist is no exception. It depicts the moment the main character has her clothes torn off while working as a drive-in waitress. It’s certainly a jailable offense, but in sleaze it just leads to more of the same. Based on that description, it should be no surprise the book was written by pervert extraordinaire Orrie Hitt. Writing as Roger Normandie he originally published it as Run for Cover in 1956, then Kozy Books picked it up and re-released it as Race with Lust in 1957. You can get a sense of what the plot is from the rear cover, or peruse a longer summary here.