William P. McGivern's 1961 novel Savage Streets was part of a wave of juvenile delinquent fiction characterized by the novels of Hal Elson and Harlan Ellison, and a nice example of a genre that rose in response to middle American fear and fascination with youth gangs. The narrative begins when some junior league thugs who call themselves the Chiefs begin extorting money from the pre-teen kids of a nearby suburb. The kids steal from their parents to satisfy these demands, but the thefts go unnoticed only for so long. The truth comes out, a suburban father intervenes with the gang on behalf of his son, and a fistfight results. Other parents in this conservative enclave are infuriated at the gang, and a group of them go to the police, but when the results aren't satisfactory they decide to deal with the Chiefs in a way the gang will understand—by hitting back twice as hard.

From this point, McGivern takes his tale in an interesting direction. The dads expect the police to function as tools of their anger. Any attempt to give the Chiefs equal treatment or due process is met with outrage. In other words, they expect to be protected by the law without being accountable to it, while they expect the Chiefs to be accountable to the law without being protected by it. This leads not to resolution, but to increasing distrust, violence, and finally disaster upon disaster. Later the dads realize that the genesis of the crisis may not have been the Chiefs' extortion after all, but something the dads were involved with even earlier—a law they helped push through the city council. They might have realized the law was unfair, but none of them cared enough to bother looking closely at it. McGivern really hit pay dirt with this book. It's well written, immersive, and relevant. 

Above, an uncredited cover for Blondes Die Young by Bill Peters. The author is aka William P. McGivern, and the book is hard boiled action in Chicago's jazz clubs and dope dens, as the sleuth protagonist Bill Canalli tries to track down the culprit who murdered his girlfriend. Who by the way has barely cooled to room temperature before slick Bill beds another woman, but what's a hard boiled guy to do? Anything to get to the bottom—of the case. The hero's treatment of this woman will raise some eyebrows in this day and age, but this is still an involving tale and we like that it doesn't get too moralistic about the drugs angle. And we got it for four bucks, which is an absolute steal. It was written in 1952 originally, with this Popular Library paperback edition appearing in 1953. 

We’ve explored several cover motifs in pulp art, and another we’ve grown to appreciate is the use of venetian blind shadows or silhouettes. Always a dramatic addition to a cover, we could probably compile fifty of these, at least, but here are twenty examples. The artists—Emilio Freix, Robert Maguire, James Hodges, and others—use them to greater and lesser degrees, and opt for both literal and stylized renderings. For instance, the above cover from Maguire shows vertical shadows, but the sense of venetian blinds remains. As always, thanks to all the original uploaders.

Amazing Stories was launched in 1926 and was the first publication devoted solely to sci-fi. These issues span January to December 1941. Most of the pieces (those that prominently feature figures) are by the excellent J. Allen St. John. Leo Morey painted February, Stockton Mulford painted July, Robert Fuqua painted September and November, and Rod Ruth painted December. We have a hundred and thirty-three fully scanned issues of this magazine, which is pretty cool, though we’ll probably never have time to read them. But we’ll certainly share more down the line.