The Third Skin - John Bingham

"A novel of the weak and the wicked"

PAN BOOKS G210

1ST PAN PRINTING 1959

LONDON, UK

FIRST PUBLISHED IN HARDBACK BY VICTOR GOLLANCZ 1954

COVER ART BY DE MARCO

'You didn't kill him did you, Ron?' he said piteously. 'He's all right, isn't he?'

Dimly-very dimly-Les realised that he was caught up in something big which he could not control. He was no longer a free agent...

Whether he liked it or not, they'd have to hang together-and the phrase sent a wave of terror through him.

JOHN BINGHAM, one of the foremost 'straight' novelists of our day, tells the story of Les, a cosh-boy, who was fundamentally harmless, but weak and impressionable-a story which moves us to pity and horror.

Dead Respectable - Desmond Reid

"Chelsea: beats and debs in clubs and pads..."

MAYFLOWER DELL 1713-8

SEXTON BLAKE LIBRARY (5TH SERIES) NO.34

1ST PRINTING 1967

LONDON, UK 

To the worried American father the plea was simple - "Find my missing son in London."

To Blake it seemed at first a routine assignment, then the straight road of investigation took strange turnings. There were the cases of the murdered tramps, and the outbreak of suicides amongst university students...

It wasn't easy to find the truth amongst the Chelsea 'set' of S.W.3., where the trail started. Instead, Blake and his assistant found a fantasy world of pseudo-artists and their models; probed a dope-ring; met a white haired young man with a strange philosophy, and a doctor with a stranger practice.

Death and gang-violence joined their search before the riddle of the vanished American student was solved to Blake's satisfaction - if not to that of the police.

Black Leather Barbarians - Pat Stadley

"They call themselves the Night Hawks. Six teen-age toughs on motorcycles, they can make any chick, take on any cop.
Read their story and you'll never rest easy again."

SIGNET BOOKS S1863

1ST PRINTING DECEMBER 1960

NEW YORK, USA

FIRST PUBLISHED IN HARDBACK BY BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY INC 1960

RUN, COPPER, RUN

The young cop parked his motorcycle beside the tree and headed toward them.

The moonlight caught the sheen of their black leather jackets, the tight fit of their blue jeans, the steel tips of their boots...caught the taunting smile on their lips as they stood waiting, six against one.

Take it easy, the cop told himself. They're just kids. But he knew better. He remembered what they had done to the girl, how they passed her around before they messed her up. And he knew that he couldn't let them get away with it.

He had to face them. He had to fight them. Here. Now.

The Magic Of Their Singing - Bernard Wolfe

"Hipsters, Ivy Leaguers and Juvenile Delinquents meet in a powerful story of passion and violence"

MACFADDEN BOOKS 50-151

1ST PRINTING 1962

NEW YORK, USA

FIRST PUBLISHED IN HARDBACK BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1961
COVER ART BY LEO AND DIANE DILLON

THE MAGIC OF THEIR SINGING...

is far more than a Greenwich Village party where clothes are shed as easily as inhibition...

where Scotch and Bourbon and Drugs lead to a grotesque and terrifying orgy.

Author Bernard Wolfe has looked deep beneath the surface to write a brilliant satire on America's newest cult of non-conformists and their lives of music without melody and sex without romance.

Two Left Feet - David Stuart Leslie

London's teenage jungle blazing vividly to life

PAN BOOKS X194

2ND PRINTING 1963

LONDON, UK

(FIRST PUBLISHED BY PAN BOOKS 1963)
MOVIE TIE-IN

FIRST PUBLISHED IN HARDBACK 

AS "IN MY SOLITUDE" BY HUTCHINSON & CO 1960

'FINGS AS THEY ARE...

jive clubs, flick-knife duels, rivalry over girls...

Fresh observation, no self-pity, no phoney sociology, rough and squalid, yet redeemed often by sardonic cockney humour...

A story as convincing as it is readable' Daily Express

David Stuart Leslie steps into the world of Teds and tarts, violence and uncertainty and comes out with a novel at once brutally honest and superbly written

Double Zero - David Collyer

"Five years with Rockers and Hell's Angels in an English City"

FONTANA BOOKS 0006232043

2ND PRINTING MAY 1973

LONDON, UK

(FIRST PUBLISHED BY FONTANA BOOKS 1973)

Rev up and...off

These were the instructions given to David Collyer at the start of his unorthodox ministry as chaplain for a club for the unclubbable Rockers, Hell's Angels and Mods in Birmingham

A fantastic story

How he avoided being killed or maimed for life and yet persisted in his love and duty to these violent young is nothing short of miraculous

No punches are pulled

Murder, sex, drugs, death on the road, thieving, malicious damage, and all the turbulence of ignorant and undisciplined youth are the scene. No attempt was made to preach or to moralize. The author literally became 'one of them'. But throughout the narrative there is a response to a religious need and a will to service for others which makes this not only a breathtaking but also a very moving book

Soccer Thug - Frank Clegg

"A shocking indictment of the violent world of the terrace tearaways"

SPHERE BOOKS 0722193394

1ST PRINTING 1973

LONDON, UK

STRIKER WASN'T ALL BAD...

he did enjoy agro and birds and the roaring power of his Triumph Bonneville. But the big thing in his life was the United football team. And especially the flamboyant Irish superstar, Donnell. Striker followed United everywhere, ready to support his team on the pitch and its reputation off-field. His fervour dropped him into trouble: with the police, with rival fans, and trouble with Rantic who wanted to take over the gang. But whether it was women or agro Striker usually knew how to look after himself. Usually...

Soccer Thug - a shocking indictment of the violent world of the terrace tearaways

Twelve Angels From Hell - David Wilkerson

"The story of real-life struggles of hardened, enslaved young people who met God through the Asphalt Jungle"

OLIPHANTS LAKELAND SERIES 91

LONDON, UK

1966

SEQUEL TO CROSS AND SWITCHBLADE

TWELVE ANGELS FROM HELL

the story of real-life struggles of hardened, enslaved young people who met God through the Asphalt Jungle

God versus heroin

On a street corner in Harlem, at the centre of the drug world, ministers and former addicts preach to a crowd. They are part of a five-year-old religious organization callled Teen Challenge. It's workers penetrate the drug jungles of cities from New York to Los Angeles. 'Addiction is not hopeless,'T-C founder David Wilkerson, a minister of the Assemblies of God church, tells the addicts, 'but only one force in the world can recue you from your habit-God.'

By the same author:

THE CROSS AND THE SWITCHBLADE

The thrilling true story of a country preacher's fight against teen-age crime in big-city slums

More than 1,000,000 copies sold!

Savage Delinquents - Alan Bennett

"There- boiling passions and constant demand for kicks lead the to:- Hot Rods, Lusting, Rape"

  

BEDSIDE BOOKS 824

NEW YORK, USA

SPECIAL BB EDITION 1959 (?)

SAVAGE

BOILING PASSIONS...

in the delinquent underworld, thrill-dizzy punks and souped up hot-rods are the everyday way of life for today's teen-age 'beatniks.' To be accepted in the gang you had to play it the gang's way. The way of a city's baby-faced bums. Their games were stealing and lusting, and they kept score by the sin. Here for the first time is the true story of why so many of our youngsters get on the wrong path and find themselves on the degrading road of...

SHAMELESS THRILLS!

DELINQUENTS

Basement Gang - David Williams

"Kathie was a virgin when they led her down the steps - A daring novel of reefer smoke - reckless thrills and the wild love of boys and girls of the city streets!"

BEACON BOOKS B 260

1959

USA

THIS WAY DOWN

Seven steps descended from the side-walk to the cellar club. They led lovely young Kathie Melton out of the innocence of her teens into the guilt and viciousness of a precociously sinful world!

Kathie knew the cellar gang was a little wild. She joined, just the same-chiefly to show Hank Landrum she was tired of his idea of an exciting Saturday night. What she didn't know was that the cellar crowd were fond of vile amusements and up to their necks in the rackets.

The excitement really started when Hank, out of longing for her, tried to pull her from the gang. Its jittery members decided to take care of both Hank and Kathie...

A frank, shocking novel of teen-age life in a New York slum! Here are intimately revealed the desperate secrets of youth caught in the toils of poverty, seeking escape through vice and violence!

Let Me Alone - Donald Windham

"A tough teen-ager in search of manhood"

ACE BOOKS H317

1st ACE EDITION 1960

LONDON, UK

FIRST PUBLISHED IN HARDBACK BY RUPERT HART-DAVIS AS "THE DOG STAR"

The atmosphere of Let Me Alone seems unimpeachably authentic; the family for whom Blackie feels mingled affection and repulsion, the neighbourhood boys who seem to him pathetically feeble compared to the dead hero, the girl to whom he behaves with savage and unmeaning violence - TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

 A boy of fifteen, an American whose ideal is to be tough and indifferent, makes Let Me Alone a nightmare of sultry heat - THE GUARDIAN

It has the eternal validity of legend : it delineates a truth that is too powerful to be a cliche against a background that is too mean to be anything else - THE LISTENER

Happening At San Remo - Bruce Cassiday

"A daring novel of today's Young Underground - its sexual and mental excesses - its search for sensation and conflict"

PYRAMID BOOKS T-1614

NEW YORK, USA

1ST PRINTING AUGUST 1967

COVER PHOTO - R. NEMSER

COVER DESIGN - LEMBIT RAUK

Freakouts, LSD, Sit-ins, Riots, Sex-Freedoms

...the troubled, intensely alive world of today's college generation. A world of vitality, of color, of the search for new sensations, of commitment-and of danger. In Happening At San Remo, it is brilliantly, sometimes shockingly, portrayed, in a tense, action-filled story of youthful revolt, casual matings, perilous experiments, orgiastic "rituals"-and, at the shattering climax, an encounter with implacable evil

Hell To Pay - William R. Cox

"They're hopped-up punks, at war with the syndicate - and they kill just for kicks"

SIGNET BOOKS 1555

NEW YORK, USA

1ST PRINTING AUGUST 1958

DEATH ON ALL SIDES

Kids with ducktail hairdos and tight pants who live on marijuana and the big H and glory in viciousness.

They fear nothing...because somebody big is backing them, promising them real power in the underworld if they buck the syndicate.

Kids hopped up on dope and out for blood.

This is the story of Tom Kincaid, a free-lance gambler-caught in the middle of a war between the syndicate and a gang of teen-age hoodlums-hemmed in by death...on all sides.

Asphalt Playground - John Wiles

"THE SOMBRE AND VIOLENT WORLD OF TEEN-AGE DELINQUENTS IN A LONDON SLUM"

ACE BOOKS H340

LONDON, UK

1ST ACE BOOKS EDITION 1960

FIRST PUBLISHED IN HARDBACK BY VICTOR GOLLANCZ 1958

Mr. Wiles is a talented writer, and the economy and gruesome humour of his novel intensifies our shocked comprehension of the teddy boy jungle - The Times Literary Supplement

A fine novel about children and how they are changed into toughs - The Guardian

Dope International - Charles Wighton

"The greatest criminal conspiracy and the "Merchants of Death" who plan it"

FOUR SQUARE BOOKS 1145

LONDON, UK

1ST FOUR SQUARE EDITION1964

FIRST PUBLISHED IN HARDBACK BY FREDERICK MULLER 1960

From the top-secret files of the counter-narcotics secret service. From personal accounts of those who wage the nonstop cloak and dagger fight against the "ring". Charles Wighton has uncovered the story of the crime which uses all the weapons in the underworld to keep its secrets. Murders, bribery, corruption in high places - the powerful dope ring uses no half-measures. "Sami" el Khoury of Beirut; Luciano, the ageing boss of teh Italian Mafia; "Gino" Messina with his London tie-up; Mondoloni, the Corsican chieftain who held up and robbed the Begum Aga Khan; and the multi-millionaire Vito Genovese, "President of the American Crime Corporation", imprisoned for 15 years for dope trafficking. All these men are the "Merchants of Death" and their network extends over the whole world. Only one question still remains...the key question..."Who is the Boss?" Is he in America, the Middle East, France, Switzerland or...England?

Adrift in Soho - Colin Wilson

"The comic, sad, blazingly honest novel of a young man's search for experience among London's eccentrics, Beats and Artists"

PAN BOOKS X297

1ST PAPERBACK PRINTING 1964

LONDON, UK

FIRST PUBLISHED IN HARDBACK BY VICTOR GOLLANCZ 1961

Down to London from the Midlands comes Harry, a young man searching for experience. How he finds it, adrift in Soho, is the story of this picaresque and wonderfully entertaining novel

The espresso bars, dingy 'dives', the broken-down tarts and actors, the virago landladies, the unwashed sheets - so good is Mr. Wilson's prose, one sees and smells them all

Steel Shivs - Bernard Sorkin

"The savage story of a gang of young punks who specialized in dope pushing, rape and murder-rougher than The Amboy Dukes"

PYRAMID BOOKS F-731

1ST PRINTING MAY 1962 

NEW YORK, USA 

COVER - PAUL BACON STUDIO

THE SHIV

...razor-sharp, steel blade glittering in the streetlight...

A TOOL for terror and murder in the nightmare world of the street gangs-silent, deadly in experienced hands...

A DEFENSE for guys like Steve-the only defense for a kid in bad with the cops...and with a sister the gangs wanted...

A WARNING for any girl who resists the gang members...and who doesn't want her face slashed and disfigured for life...

STEEL SHIVS is a brutally true novel of today's kids - the vicious ones, the terrified ones, the lost ones-the kids who live and die by the Steel Shivs

I Am A Teen-Age Dope Addict - Valerie Jordan

"The intimate story of a girl degraded by drugs"

MONARCH BOOKS MB526

DERBY, CONNECTICUT, USA

JULY 1962 First Publication Anywhere

DESCENT INTO PARADISE

You're Valerie Jordan and you've just had your first puff of a reefer. You're not scared. Why should you be? Nobody can kid you, because you know marijuana is not habit-forming. So what's the big deal if a girl wants a kick?

But there comes a day when a kick is not enough. You're feeling down, like you were underground and you know you've got to have a jolt, a blast-heroin!

The next step? A bigger jolt, a louder blast-to the tune of thirty dollars a day-and that's a lot of bread.

It means picking up men-half a dozen a day-what does it matter? You're in paradise. Until the blast wears off and you've got to face reality again: you're hooked, chained, a teen-age dope addict.

About

Welcome to The Cool World...

This blog is dedicated to Juvenile Delinquent and related vintage paperbacks and cinema programmes from the 1930s to the 1990s. For me these books and movies go hand in hand and as I suspect, they do for the majority of you as well. I will be posting up some really cool covers and also the cover blurb that promised so much to the unsuspecting reader. I won't be posting any reviews, you can make your own mind from the cover blurb or artwork, just like it should be.

Here you will meet Juvenile Delinquents, Dope Addicts, Teddy Boys, Motorcycle Gangs, Hot Rodders, Beatniks, Girl Gangs, Mods, Skinheads and other wayward youth. So sit back and enjoy the raucous world of sex, drugs and violence that awaits you. 

We also produce a fanzine, dedicated to vintage film programmes, it's packed with great images from movies and also includes paperbacks and cool records.  

The fanzine always has a super limited print run, between 25 and 50 copies per issue (usually around 25 copies). It's printed in colour. It's A5 in size, this helps with keeping the now astronomical worldwide postage cost to a minimum, it has 36 pages and if you're really lucky, you may even snag yourself one of the ultra limited hand-printed lino cut covers.

You can find all the details on our Facebook page thecoolworld

Thanks for dropping by.