Tuesday 31 January 2023

Nightmare Street - Hal Ellson

The big, brutal story of a nightmare world where passion is a pastime and pain a pleasure


Publisher: Belmont Books
Number: 9o-316
Publishing Year: 1964
Printing: First
Cover Price:
Cover Artist:

"SHOCKING"
is what the Saturday Review has said of Hal Ellson's writing

"FASCINATING"
is what the New York Herald Tribune said of Hal Ellson's smash bestseller, DUKE

TREMENDOUS
is what they'll say about NIGHTMARE STREET, the story of a man who looked for the easy life, only to find that he'd made a pact with a diabolical, deadly stranger who led him into a life of sex, sin and sadism - a life of torture and torment from which there was no escape.

Sunday 29 January 2023

Hot Rod - Henry Gregor Felsen

Speed. . .Danger. . .DEATH!


Publisher: Bantam Books
Number: 923
Publishing Year: 1951
Printing: First
Cover Price:
Cover Artist:

WHAT THE REVIEWERS SAY OF THIS MNOVEL:

". . .PUNCH, DRAMA, SUSPENSE, SWIFT ACTION, SHREWD CHARACTERIZATION. . ."
-Dallas TIMES

"Full of thrills and excitement, hard to put down. . ."
-Wichita EAGLE

"DRAMA-PACKED, PLENTY OF SUSPENSE. . ."
-Montgomery (Ala.) ADVERTISER

Friday 27 January 2023

All The Way Down - Vincent Riccio and Bill Slocum

THE VIOLENT UNDERWORLD OF STREET GANGS


Publisher: Ballantine Books
Number: F 712
Publishing Year: 1962
Printing: First
Cover Price: 50c
Cover Artist: 

ALL THE WAY DOWN

is the story of five years spent in the vicious, appalling underworld of the juvenile street gangs. Vincent Riccio, ex-boxer with an M.A. degree from Columbia, was a street worker with the New York City Youth Board. The life he describes makes "West Side Story" sound like a kindergarten fairy tale.

This is the brutal, unadorned truth about a world where rival gangs fight "wars" with tire-chains, knives and guns; where the teen-age date is replaced by mass rape in the back seat of a stolen car; where murder is a status symbol and kids of 14 are hopelessly hooked on dope.

"Juvenile delinquency is going to be unbeatable in ten years," the Attorney General of the United States said recently. Vincent Riccio writes bitterly: "I hope it's not unbeatable now."

Wednesday 25 January 2023

Blood On My Shadow - A. J. Merak

The Pick-up order was out: Get Johnny Merak, dead or alive . . . .


Publisher: Badger Books 
Number: Mystery Series No. 3
Publishing Year: 1956
Printing: First
Cover Price: 2'-
Cover Artist: Ray Theobald

Introducing

Blood on My Shoulder

by

A. J. MERAK

Johnny Merak was determined to get Maxie Temple, who'd framed him for a three-year-stretch in San Quentin. But the Big Men of the Los Angeles Underworld wanted both Temple and Johnny Merak and decided that by killing Temple they could do both with the same shot.

But Merak wasn't having any of the deal and when Dawn Grahame showed up, he was more than ready to take on the whole of the Organisation. Bit first he had to meet the suspects. the unknown hoodlum who knew too much. Madden who might have been the killer and his girl-friend who had to be fed with heroin to keep her from talking to the wrong people.

Finally there were Clancy Snow and Dutch McKnight, the bosses of the Underworld who sat like black spiders in the web of treachery and vice that made up the Dark Side of Los Angeles.

And at the end of the play, when the chips were down and all the cards on the table. Death stepped in to reap the winnings.

Monday 23 January 2023

Pablo's Mountain - Albert Johnston

 A BOY EXPLODES INTO MANHOOD IN THIS CLASSIC OF "DEPRAVITY VIEWED THROUGH THE EYES OF INNOCENCE"



Publisher: Award Books
Number: A164 X K
Publishing Year: 1966 (January)
Printing: First
Cover Price:
Cover Artist:

"Moving . . . Disturbing"
-N.Y. Times

You have just come to New York City looking for a home, a job, and (yes, Miguel would soon admit this to himself) love.

But in El Barrio, the heart of this city, you find only corruption: prostitutes for neighbors, hoodlums for the children to play with. In El Barrio you live with fear by day and violence by night.

This is the background for the book that shocked New Yorkers, and readers across the nation, when it became the fiction "sleeper" of the year. This is story behind New York City's explosive headlines.

"MR. JOHNSTON IS TO BE CONGRATULATED"
-San Francisco Chronicle

Saturday 21 January 2023

Juvenile Hoods - Joseph Shallit

When marijuana means murder!


Publisher: Avon Books
Number: T-170
Publishing Year: 1959
Printing: First
Cover Price: 35c
Cover Artist:

Originally published as 'Kiss The Killer'

a rotten racket

narcotics

Some punk is selling marijuana to teen-agers. A heel who ought to be killed.

Someone is - and Dan Morrison is right in the middle of it because . . .

he runs the athletic center where the teen-age addicts hang out

he gets involved with a trio of gals who show him you can't mix murder with a kiss - unless it's a kiss of death.

Thursday 19 January 2023

Scum - Roy Minton

  A NOVEL BASED ON THE TV PLAY BANNED BY THE BBC


Publisher: Arrow Books
Number: 0099192705
Publishing Year: 1979
Printing: First
Cover Price:
Cover Artist:

BANNED

Rox Minton's controversial television play SCUM was commissioned by the BBC, filmed, advertised, then suddenly withdrawn a short time before it was due to be screened.

The decision to veto caused violent reactions - from those who supported the censorship as well as those who felt outraged by the Establishment's ban.

Now Roy Minton has re-written the plays as a novel: and, for the first time, the public has the chance to make up its own mind.

It is an uncompromising, often shocking and outspoken comment on the bleak, brutal world of a Borstal: a powerful story that tells the truth about the boys labelled 'Scum' - and the men they call 'Screws'!

A Major film of SCUM is planned for the near future.

Tuesday 17 January 2023

D for Delinquent - Bud Clifton

 SHE WAS STRICTLY FOR THE BOYS


Publisher: Ace Books
Number: D-270
Publishing Year: 1958
Printing: First
Cover Price: 35c
Cover Artist:

THE JAIL-BAIT AGE

What with petty thievery and wild marijuana parties, there had been enough problems for the faculty at Seacliff High before the girl named Gloria arrived. She was sixteen, she was sexy, and she spelled trouble.

For Gloria was a teen-ager with an adult past. The things that were still considered daring to the local gangs and that shocked teachers in Seacliff were kid stuff this brassy little teaser.

So when Gloria displayed her special talents around the school and after hours, it started a new kind of an extra-curricular rumble that grew into a volcanic eruption which overran Seacliff.

Sunday 15 January 2023

Tuck's Girl - Marcel Wallenstein

THE VIOLENT STORY OF A REFORMATORY GIRL AND HER HOPELESS PASSION FOR A HARDENED YOUNG CRIMINAL


Publisher: Ace Books
Number: H 319
Publishing Year: 1960
Printing: First
Cover Price: 2/6
Cover Artist:

TUCK
A savage crook in jail for robbery with murder

HIS GIRL
Anna, a reformatory girl, runaway from bad home, dominated by her fierce longing for a love which is now only a bitter memory

THE STORY
Anna is told that two hundred dollars will ensure Tuck's parole. She commits murder to get it, then takes to the road with the half-breed Indian who has helped with the crime, and is timidly in love with her. She has no regard for the half-breed, but uses him cruelly to protect herself, following a path of deception and cunning until her final disillusionment.

Tuck's Girl is a remarkable story of the lengths to which a woman will go when a rememembered love is all that she lives for

Friday 13 January 2023

The Blackboard Jungle - Evan Hunter

The frightening best-seller of America's teenage hoodlums that scorches with emotional shocks


Publisher: Panther Books
Number: 685
Publishing Year: 1964
Printing: Thirteenth
Cover Price: 3'6
Cover Artist:

This edition has new cover art

A NOVEL THAT HAS BECOME A CLASSIC OF CONTEMPORARY FICTION

A story that savagely exposes a burning problem

"He saw West's fists doubled and hard, saw the animal look that had come on Belazi's face, and again the knife, threatening and sharp. . .The noise grew louder and Rick grasped in his mind for a picture of the Roman arena, tried to to rise, felt pain sear through his right arm. . .He's cut me, he thought with panic. Belazi has cut me. . .THIS IS IT. . .THIS IS REALLY IT."

' I can assure you Spare The Rod is as nothing compared with the description of life in a similar New York school given in The Blackboard Jungle'.
- DAVID HOLLOWAY

Wednesday 11 January 2023

13 West Street - Leigh Brackett

I THOUGHT THEY WERE JUST NICE KIDS - BUT THEY MARKED ME FOR LIFE AND I SWORE I'D LIVE TO HUNT THEM DOWN. NOW AN EXCITING MOTION PICTURE


Publisher: Corgi Books
Number: SC1184
Publishing Year: 1962
Printing:  (Movie Tie-In)
Cover Price: 2'6
Cover Artist:

TIGER

I didn't know who they were or what they wanted when they came out of the night. They looked like nice enough kids from nice enough families, but they turned into bloodthirsty tigers and nearly killed me-FOR FUN!

They marked my body with their blows, they marked my soul with hatred. I had to find them, but the police couldn't help me, my wife begged me to forget, the kids themselves sent a message to quit-OR DIE!

But nothing could stop me, for now I was a tiger, too, a tiger who hunted by night-AND BY DAY!

13 WEST STREET

A LADD ENTERPRISES PRODUCTION FOR COLUMBIA PICTURES, SATRRING ALAN LADD AND ROD STEIGER. PRODUCED BY WILLIAM BLOOM AND DIRECTED BY PHILIP LEACOCK

Monday 9 January 2023

Junkie - William Burroughs

 BY THE AUTHOR OF NAKED LUNCH


Publisher: Ace Star Books
Number: 41841
Publishing Year: 1964
Printing: First
Cover Price:
Cover Artist:

First and foremost among the "Beat Generation" writers is the name of William Burroughs, mentor and friend of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Holmes. Noe catching the attention of the literary world with his novel NAKED LUNCH, Burroughs' most significant work is his unforgettable autobiographical book JUNKIE.

JUNKIE, surely the first book of the Beats, was published by Ace Books. A much sought-after volume, this striking account of the world of the narcotic and the socially rebellious, is a shocking, violent, and brilliantly objective account of an unredeemed dope addict and his experiences in the U.S.

Reading JUNKIE is a once-in-a-life-time experience.