We've run across some low characters in paperback art, but these guys are the lowest. Faced with danger they've grabbed the nearest woman to use as a shield. Women in mid-century fiction have it rough—they're interrupted while skinny-dipping, carried off against their will, manhandled, spied on, tied up, and more. They have their victories too, thankfully—put a gun in their hands and they start dropping men like two-foot putts. Well, good thing femmes fatales are so tough, because they'll need to be hard enough to stop bullets to get out of these jams. We shared another cover in the same style back in 2009 and you can see that nice effort here.

We tried to find something warm and loving to post for Valentine’s Day, but this is the best we could come up with. It’s a Rudolph Belarski cover for Richard Sale’s World War II adventure Death at Sea, née Destination Unknown. The Popular Library paperback you see here appeared in 1948. And if you absolutely must have appropriate Valentine’s Day material, we posted some romance pulps back in 2009, and you can see them here.