Above, a Signet paperback edition of James Aswell’s There’s One in Every Town, originally published in 1951, with this edition appearing in 1956. Aswell conducts readers into Erskine Caldwell country with a tale of sex and consequences. This genre was absolutely bursting back in the 1950s. We never stop running across entries that were previously unknown to us. This particular story is about young—very young—Jackie Vose, who by mere association ruins any male who comes near her. She's seen as salvageable by at least one man—or rather boy, since he's the seventeen-year-old heart-smitten narrator. But he never has much of a chance. It's the town doctor who actually gets in too deep, and it doesn't end well. South, sin, and sadness.

Barye Phillips art adorns the cover of Carter Brown's The Bombshell, first published in 1957, with this Signet edition appearing in 1960. The book features his franchise police detective Al Wheeler, who's assigned a murder case where there's no body. He protests because it's really a missing persons investigation, but his boss is convinced young Lily Teal's corpse is somewhere to be found. Even so, a previous investigation came up empty and Wheeler is assigned the case with the expectation he won't get anywhere. But failure is for lesser detectives. Our favorite exchange in this one:

Femme fatale: “Maybe it's something to do with me being born in the South—a girl matures early in a hot climate.”

Al Wheeler: “And you've been carrying that climate around with you ever since.

We shared this cover as part of a collection several years ago, but hadn't read the book. The scan above is from our own copy. This is the third Al Wheeler book in the long running series, but it already feels a bit perfunctory. The narrative doesn't really take off until Wheeler is framed for attempted sexual assault. At that point, based on how far his still unknown enemies are willing to go, he realizes there's more to the case than just a possible murder. Overall, not a bad outing, but nothing special. We have more Al Wheeler mysteries we acquired recently, so we'll see how those go.

You don't know pressure until the Pulp Intl. girlfriends have applied it, believe us. We'd almost rather face what the protagonist of Charles Francis Coe's Pressure deals with—going from an obscure lawyer trying to scrape by to a crucial cog in an organized crime cartel. It's a bit Breaking Bad in the sense that he initially does it for his family, but ends up alienating them. The pressure really mounts when he decides he has to get out or lose everything. The book first appeared in 1951 and the above Signet edition came in 1952, with cover work by Harry Schaare. 

We often take liberties interpreting cover art, and Jerry Weil's 1957 novel Office Wife has given us just such an opportunity. The woman is supposed to be the man's “executive sweetie,” but we see it the opposite way. Also, the book doesn't really involve an office marriage. The term “wife” is meant loosely—i.e. the main character Eileen enjoys wifely liaisons with guys at her chic NYC advertising firm. Ultimately she taps into her executive ambitions and, in order to get what she wants, transforms from used to user. You can see a collection of entries from the office sleaze bin at this link, and we have individual entries here and here. 

Shrunken Head à la Pulp Intl.

You will need: One human head freshly cut from an enemy*. One large iron pot. Six to eight gallons of water. Five bundles of firewood. One pound of small stones. One pound of sand. Five ounces of plant seeds. Several small wooden pegs. Needle and twine. One bay leaf (optional).

1: Carefully remove skin and hair from head by making incision in back of neck. Sew eyelids shut, seal mouth with wooden pegs, and sew neck slit closed, but leave open the large neck hole where the head was severed. Discard skull or offer as sacrifice to cruel primitive god.

2: Simmer head in water for one to two hours. Be careful not to over boil, as this will cause the hair to come off. Remove head and discard liquid, or add bay leaf and use as soup base.

3: Head should now be one third normal size and rubbery. Carefully turn inside out and scrape remaining flesh away. Discard scraps or save as dog treats.

4: Invert head skin side out once more. Heat stones and sand over fire and insert into head. This will cause more shrinkage.

5: Once head has reached desired size pack in hot sand to set shape and facial features and let bake at low temperature.

6: Remove from sand. Rub wood ash on head to prevent muisak, or avenging soul, from escaping. If you are not superstitious or prefer a lighter colored head skip this step.

7: Fill head with seeds and sew neck hole shut. Hang head several feet over fire to slowly harden. Be careful not to overheat, as hair can ignite.

8: Wear shrunken head around neck to instill terror and revulsion in onlookers. Optionally, it can be fitted with a tiny hat and sunglasses.

And that's all there is to it, kids. If you want a more detailed recipe or just some interesting context read Lewis Cotlow's Amazon Head-Hunters and learn how the Jivaro people of Ecuador did it. 1954 copyright on the Signet Giant edition with James Meese cover art.  

Above, a small collection of Mickey Spillane covers illustrated by Barye Phillips in similar style for Signet Books published throughout the 1950s. Spillane had many cover treatments over the decades but these, which were made for the Mike Hammer series, are among the best. There's one more, for Vengeance Is Mine, but we plan to read that and report back, so we've left it out. Phillips did other art for Signet, including illustrating the fronts of James Bond and Al Wheeler novels. We're also big fans of this piece, and this one too. And you can also see another Spillane collection we put together here.

Above you see the covers for the 1958 and 1954 Signet editions of Death Before Bedtime, by Edgar Box, who was in reality literary legend Gore Vidal. This novel is the middle entry of a trilogy—the first is Death in the Fifth Position and the third is Death Likes It Hot. All feature public relations exec/amateur detective Peter Sargeant II, and the story in this one takes place in Washington, D.C., and involves a murdered senator, his promiscuous daughter, his widow, and various figures ranging from pure to corrupt. It owes plenty to Agatha Christie in that the murder—via dynamite, by the way—occurs in a house and everyone who was on the premises is a suspect. Unsurprisingly, there's almost as much sex as sleuthing, but there's also plenty of Vidalian wit. The top cover was painted by Robert Maguire and the second was the work of Clark Hulings.