“Do Not Murder Before Christmas,” by Jack Iams

Do Not Murder Before Christmas, by Jack Iams (Dell, 1951). Although this novel was published in hardcover in 1949, by William Morrow, it is the above paperback edition that wins the most notice, especially at this time of year. The artwork here is by Robert Stanley, about whom we’ve written extensively before, and the story is the fifth to star newspaper editor Stanley Rockwell, aka Rocky. Author Iams—whose real name was Samuel H. Iams Jr. (1910-1990)—was himself a journalist with more than half a century’s experience, having labored as “a foreign correspondent, a writer for Newsweek, and an author of comic and mystery novels,” according to his obituary.

The Inconvenience of Abundance

It was while I was putting together a rather lengthy Rap Sheet interview with Iowa fictionist Max Allan Collins, most of which had to do with his new historical crime novel, Too Many Bullets (Hard Case Crime), that I realized just how many book fronts featuring those words “too many” can be found in my computer files.

Too Many Bullets, the cover of which is displayed atop this post (with art by Paul Mann), is the fifth entry* in a sort of mini-series within Collins’ string of 19 novels starring hard-boiled, Chicago-based private investigator Nate Heller, all of them in some way featuring John F. Kennedy and/or his younger brother Robert F. Kennedy. Bullets imagines the ubiquitous Heller on hand at Democratic U.S. Senator Bob Kennedy’s 1968 slaying in Los Angeles, and then follows him as he endeavors to untangle a conspiracy meant to pin that headline-grabbing tragedy on “lone gunman” Sirhan Sirhan.

When I typed “too many” into the search window of my computer’s Picasa image viewer, looking from the jacket of Too Many Bullets—surprise!—more than one cover came up. Not just Collins’, but also the fronts from 10 other novels, none of which I remembered downloading or storing away for future use. There was the 1962 Bantam paperback cover of Rex Stout’s Too Many Clients (with art by Bill Johnson), as well as the fronts from two other Stout works: Too Many Cooks (Dell, 1951; art by Robert Stanley) and Too Many Women (Bantam, 1949; art by Hy Rubin). In addition, I found Too Many Murderers, by Manning Lee Stokes (Graphic Mystery, 1955; illustration by Clyde Ross); One Murder Too Many, by George Harmon Coxe (Pyramid, 1967; artist unidentified); Too Many Beds, by “Tony Calvano,” aka Thomas P. Ramirez (Nightstand, 1961; artwork by Harold W. McCauley); Too Many Sinners, by Sheldon Stark (Ace, 1954; artist unidentified); Too Many Crooks, by Richard S. Prather (Gold Medal, 1956, featuring a Barye Phillips illustration); Too Many Women, by Milton K. Ozaki (Handi-book Mystery, 1950; artist uncredited); and finally the third Too Many Women tucked into in my files, this one by Gerry Martin (News Stand Library, 1950; art by Syd Dyke).

There are probably still more vintage books to be found with such titles. I shall add to this post as I stumble across them.

* The previous four books were Bye Bye, Baby (2011), which found Heller probing “blonde bombshell” Marilyn Monroe’s sexual involvement with both Kennedy siblings, at the same time as he sought to determine whether it was really suicide that sent the actress to her grave in 1962; Target Lancer (2012), which revisited a plot to do away with President Kennedy in Chicago in 1963—even before his tragic public slaying in Dallas, Texas; Ask Not (2013), about a succession of suspicious deaths in 1964, involving witnesses to President Kennedy’s assassination; and Better Dead (2016), in which Heller got better acquainted with Bobby Kennedy, while he investigated the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a New York City couple convicted of espionage for having reportedly leaked U.S. nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union.

Peril Makes an Entrance

(Above) Murder Is the Pay-Off, by “Leslie Ford,” aka Zenith Jones Brown (Dell, 1954). Cover illustration by Carl Bobertz.

Last year, while preparing to write a piece for CrimeReads about “colorful [paperback] cover themes from crime fiction’s past,” I put together a dozen or so sets of vintage examples that I found interesting and upon which I could cleverly comment. I wound up narrowing those down to just seven, including book fronts featuring threatening vehicles, oversized heads, women’s legs, and disembodied hands. Among the discards were covers on which men of a suspicious character either hid behind or sought to break through doors in order to menace women on the other side.

I figured at the time that those might be useful later, in some way or other. But I hadn’t given any further thought to them until last month, when I happened across the 1953 Dell edition of George Harmon Coxe’s Venturous Lady and decided to blog about it as part of this page’s “book fixes” series. Artist Griffith Foxley painted the front of that 80-year-old paperback, which shows a woman hiding in a bedroom, as a man pushes open the door, gun in hand.

This seems like as good a time as any to dust off the remainder of the door-danger covers in my collection, and display them here. Among the illustrators whose work graces the following 14 paperback covers are Ed Grant (The Fabulous Clipjoint), Clyde Ross (They Came to Baghdad), Barye Phillips (Knock Three-One-Two), Mitchell Hooks (Stranger at the Door), Frank McCarthy (The House Without a Door), Lu Kimmel (Runaway Black, written by Ed McBain under the pseudonym Richard Marsten), Victor Kalin (Killer with a Key), and Robert Stanley (The Glass Triangle). I already wrote several years ago about The Crooked Man and There Was a Crooked Man, but added them to this gallery too, because they so well fit the theme.

Women confronted by dangerous gents at doors weren’t only seen on softcover novels of old. They served equally well on crime-fiction magazines, as evidenced by the July 1946 issue of Detective Tales and the March 1957 number of True Detective. Unfortunately, I do not know who painted either of those fronts.

Let Us Now Praise Mapbacks

No Coffin for the Corpse, by Clayton Rawson (Dell, 1948).
Cover illustration by Gerald Gregg.

As I explain today in The Rap Sheet, I recently put together a piece for CrimeReads that showcases Dell Books’ outstanding “mapback” editions of the mid-20th century. You will find the completed CrimeReads post right here.

During my work on that article, I poured through the 600-or-so paperbacks comprising Dell’s memorable line. I slowly culled out 28 examples of the breed that I thought best represented the publisher’s intents and successes with those mapbacks. Ultimately, however, I had room to feature only 13 such covers in CrimeReads.

Above and below, you can see the other 15 examples I left behind on the cutting room floor. Most of these fine fronts were painted by Gerald Gregg, though a few represent the equally familiar artistry of Robert Stanley. Almost all of the backside crime scenes are credited to Ruth Belew (with more of her work available here).

The Smell of Money, by Matthew Head (Dell, 1948).
Cover illustration by George A. Frederiksen.

No Mask for Murder, by Andrew Garve (Dell, 1952).
Cover illustration by Robert Stanley.

Death Knell, by Baynard Kendrick (Dell, 1949).
Cover illustration by Gerald Gregg.

The Bat, by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood (Dell, 1948). Cover illustration by Gerald Gregg.

The Blackbirder, by Dorothy B. Hughes (Dell, 1947).
Cover illustration by Gerald Gregg.

A Man Called Spade, by Dashiell Hammett (Dell, 1945). Cover illustration by Otto Storch or Gerald Gregg.

Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, by Gerald Butler (Dell, 1947).
Cover illustration by Gerald Gregg.

The Case of the Constant Suicides, by John Dickson Carr (Dell, 1945). Cover illustration by George A. Frederiksen.

Through a Glass, Darkly, by Helen McCloy (Dell, 1951).
Cover illustration by Robert Stanley.

One Angel Less, by H.W. Roden (Dell, 1948).
Cover illustration by Gerald Gregg.

Dead of Night, by Stewart Sterling (Dell, 1952).
Cover illustration by Willard Downes.

The Opening Door, by Helen Reilly (Dell, 1947).
Cover illustration by Gerald Gregg.

The Feathered Serpent, by Edgar Wallace (Dell, 1944).
Cover illustration by Gerald Gregg.

The Circular Staircase, by Mary Roberts Rinehart (Dell, 1952).
Cover illustration by Robert Stanley.