Sunday 25 January 2015

The Warriors - Sol Yurick


PANTHER BOOKS 2218
LONDON, UK
1ST PRINTING 1967
FIRST PUBLISHED IN HARDBACK BY W.H. ALLEN LIMITED 1966

WAR ON A CITY

'Shocker is a favourite word used about books. This is one that truly merits it. It's West Side Story and then some. And nobody's singing I Feel Pretty...
Yurick isn't just concerned with crude violence. He really digs deep into the customs and conventions of these kids at war with the adult world.'
- Alan Forrest, SUNDAY CITIZEN

'The Warriors is the story of youthful delinquency to end all such tales. Nothing is left to the imagination-And the imagination boggles'
- Liverpool Daily Post

'The best novel of it's kind I've read, an altogether perfect achievement. I'm sure that to many it will sound like sacrilege but I have to say that I think it a better novel than LORD OF THE FLIES'
- Warren Miller

In the Bronx, eight boys, long sideburns and crew-cut tops, thick sweaters despite the heat, and sneering looks on their murderous Irish faces, mounted the crosstown bus. The driver felt the back of his neck turn to ice.

July 4th, American Independence Day
The teenage gangs - white, Puerto Rican, Negro...
17-year-old youths juggling with snake-coiled bicycle chains, 15-year-old girl friends nursing knives in their pockets - declare a truce to their interminable warfare and stream out from the appalling slums into downtown New York. The snobs are going to be given a rumble. So begins, as rockets soar into the sky to explode into shimmering American flags, a night of madness, orgy, and murder. The reader will certainly finish THE WARRIORS awestruck on a new, unbelievable level of awareness.

Saturday 24 January 2015

The Beatles in Help! - Al Hine

"The story of the Beatles new comedy in colour - Released by United Artists - Fully Illustrated"


MAYFLOWER DELL 0486
LONDON, UK
1ST PRINTING AUGUST 1965

THE
BEATLES
in
HELP!
also starring
LEO McKERN
ELEANOR BRON
VICTOR SPINETTI ROY KINNEAR
Produced by WALTER SHENSON
Screenplay by
MARC BEHM and CHARLES WOOD
Story by MARC BEHM
Directed by RICHARD LESTER
A Walter Shenson-Subafilms Production
Eastmancolor United Artists release

Friday 23 January 2015

Cop Killer - George Bagby

"An Inspector Schmidt Mystery"


WDL BOOKS M914
LONDON, UK
1ST PRINTING 1959

COP KILLER
It wasn't a pretty world where Patrolman Bob Black walked his lonely beat. It was a jungle-world of cheap hookers, junkies, and smart alec kids who were tired, embittered old men at fifteen.

And one night, when Bob Black was keeping his solitary vigil, someone from that jungle came out of the shadows and made sure he would never keep it again.

Inspector Schmidt of Homicide and his shadow, George Bagby, realized that finding the murderer wouldn't be easy.

How could anyone find a killer in a jungle filled with killers - all of them cop haters.

COP KILLER

NOW, BLUE JEANS ARE ALWAYS WORN TIGHT AND NARROW...

But there's tight and then there's tight. And when they fit as tight as a skin, more naked than naked, then they have a special swagger that doesn't quite go with the clean-cut kid next door.

I mean the switchblade-set swagger.

It goes with the black-leather jackets, and those lousy ducktail haircuts, and those sullen-faced kids from the slums.

And sometimes it goes with murder.

Thursday 22 January 2015

Walk Softly Walk Deadly - Lee Bergman

"A terror-ridden story of lust and raw emotion"


BELMONT BOOKS 90-282
NEW YORK, USA
1ST PRINTING MAY 1963

Anna      
"No, Larry, no," she repeated over and over. But one boy held her tightly, and the other pressed the point into her flesh...

WALK SOFTLY

Artie      
The young punk had him backed into a corner. Smiling, savoring the kill. The knife rose slowly to waist level. "Okay, man," he breathed, "Where do you want it?"

WALK DEADLY

Tomahawk
   The switchblade snapped out and in one slash he opened the sweater down the front. "What's the matter, Peggy," he taunted, "you ain't talking so smart now."

Chris
"To knife an enemy," the judge began, "is an uncivilized act. This is the case of a boy who knifed his own brother." The court was deadly quiet...

Acts of violence that are unforgivable...in "The street side story that is unforgettable." Here is a popular young novelist's masterpiece of passion and suspense. WALK SOFTLY, WALK DEADLY is already being hailed as one of the season's paperback greats.

Wednesday 21 January 2015

Teen-Age Mobster - Benjamin Appel

"Teen-Age Violence - and Adult Vice"


AVON BOOKS T-162
NEW YORK, USA
1ST PRINTING 1957
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AS 'LIFE AND DEATH OF A TOUGH GUY'

YOUNG HOOD

Out of slum back alleys and the violent sandlots of Hell's Kitchen came young Joey Case-

an ordinary, decent kid who might have been your neighbors' son one year...suddenly turned vicious mobster, "lady's man," and brutal killer the next.

With unflinching honesty, yet depth and compassion as well, one of the truly big writers of our day now tells his story-as timely and terrifying as tomorrow's headlines-the story of a kid who made murder his chosen career...

"THE BEST ACCOUNT YET IN THE FORM OF A NOVEL OF A DEBASING PHASE OF OUR HISTORY..."
N.Y. Journal-American

Tuesday 20 January 2015

Young Man With A Horn - Dorothy Baker

"Jazz was His Life - His Triumph and Tragedy"


SIGNET BOOKS 1088
NEW YORK, USA
2ND PRINTING DECEMBER 1953
FIRST PUBLISHED BY IN HARDBACK BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN 1938

Life of a Jazz Man

RICK MARTIN was a thin blond kid who grew up with music in his head - music that had to come out of a horn.

SMOKE JORDAN, Rick's best friend, helped him discover the thrilling world of jazz.

AMY NORTH, beautiful, unpredictable, loved Rick but could not compete with the music that throbbed in his brain.

This is a memorable and moving novel of a brilliant jazz musician and his fascinating, frenetic world.

Monday 19 January 2015

The Deadly Sex - Jack Webb

"They were invincible and they knew it...until they killed a cop"


FOUR SQUARE BOOKS 381
LONDON, UK
1ST FOUR SQUARE EDITION 1961
FIRST PUBLISHED IN HARDBACK BY T.V. BOARDMAN 1960
COVER ART BY MURTEL MANS

There were three of them. Trouble hung over them like a cloud. But trouble was their business.

As they passed the four young men sitting in the booth the last man, a young giant with about as much muscle as a heavy lorry, tripped over an out-thrust toe.

It could have been deliberate. It could have been an accident.

It made no difference. The giant's left hand shot out and grabbed a fistful of leather jacket. Without effort he lifted the struggling young punk off his seat, smashed him in the face with a hard-cutting right and threw him away.

They were trouble. Trouble for Laura, trouble for the police, trouble for anybody who got in their way. Trouble with a capitol T.