RARA-AVIS: Friday Finds

From: Kent Morgan (tkmorgan@shaw.ca)
Date: 08 Aug 2009

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    Yesterday I drove out to Gimli, the town with the largest Icelandic population outside of Iceland, for a Rotary Club book sale. I'm always optimistic that some old paperbacks from the summer cottages along Lake Winnipeg will show up at the sale. I know we have plenty in our family cottage about 10 miles south of Gimli. This year's haul included the following:

     

    The Maltese Falcon - Pocket 2nd printing 1944 No price

    The Deadlier Sex - Genevieve Manceron - Dell D417 .35

    Juice Town - Dean Owen - Monarch 280 .35 "Girls, Graft and Greed were Big Business in Juice Town."

    The Great Gold Steal - Ted White - Bantam PBO F3780 .50 - Captain America

    Pinktoes - Chester Himes - BOMC 1994

    Death on Donegal Bay - William Campbell Gault - Walker 1st i984 - Brock Callahan mystery

     

    Sometime ago, I thought on this list, but perhaps on his pop culture blog, Bill Crider mentioned some westerns to watch for. I don't read or collect westerns, but there was a table-full at the sale so I took a look and spotted a few ACE Doubles. I went out to my car and found Bill's list I had copied and here's what I ended up with.

     

    ACE Double F-103 .40 - A Trap For Sam Dodge - Harry Whittington & High Thunder - Lee Floren .40

    ACE Double F-260 .40 - Trail Drive - Brian Garfield & Trouble at Gunsight - Louis Trimble

    Breakheart Pass - Alastair MacLean - Fontana (Charles Bronson cover)

    The Man From Bar-20 - Clarence E. Mulford - Harlequin 107 1951

     

    The latter wasn't on Bill's list, but I knew it had to be an early Harlequin, a company that started in my home town of Winnipeg, and Mulford's main character, Johnny Nelson, was a "2-gun pupil of Hopalong Cassidy." There were several other ACE Doubles and a Bill Pronzini western, but I left them because of the poor condition.

     

    Some of the local histories and memoirs that I bought to resell will easily cover the cost of the above. All trade and mass market PBs were priced at
    $1.50 and HCs were $2.50.

     

    Kent Morgan

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