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INTRODUCTION

by Bill Pronzini

Richard Lupoff knows.

He knows the past, its diverse forms of popular culture and the fascination these hold for many of us living in the present. He has the inquisitiveness of the historian, the passionate enthusiasm of the nostalgic, and the zeal of the true collector. His lifelong interest in comic art and the early days of comic-book publishing (a field in which he is an acknowledged expert) was the impetus for his first Hobart Lindsey/Marvia Plum mystery, The Comic Book Killer (1988). The second in the series, The Classic Car Killer (1992), grew out of his regard for the vintage automobiles and the era in which such finely engineered pieces of machinery as the Duesenberg were the ne plus ultra in personal transportation. The Bessie Blue Killer (1994) is a celebration of World War II aircraft and of the black fighter pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen. The Sepia Siren Killer (1994) is a look at Hollywood filmmaking in the thirties and forties, in particular those features, barely remembered today, that were made by black producers for black audiences.

The fifth Lindsey and Plum adventure is a return to the world of publishing, specifically paperback publishing during the boom years of the early fifties—a boom created by the advent of the softcover original, in which popular novels and nonfiction works were written especially for sale to a mass-market audience in inexpensive pocket-size editions. Three aspects of the softcover original’s heyday play important roles in the story. One is how they were published and who published them; a second is the type of books published and who wrote them; and third is their vivid, often gaudy cover art and the artists who created these covers.

Many small publishing companies were founded during those fifties glory years. Some flourished for a time and then floundered, while others floundered from the start—usually (though not always) those exploiters who bought inferior literary works, and used cheap paper and substandard artwork. Quite a few of the decade’s paperback houses had short lives, so brief in some cases that virtually nothing is known about them and they are remembered only by the most ardent collectors. The Hanro Corporation, for instance, published fourteen digest-sized softcover original crime novels in 1951-52, some of which were written by established professionals and more than one of which is a cut above average; Hanro’s Phantom Books line, however, was poorly packaged and distributed, and sold so few copies that individual titles are extremely difficult to find today. Another example is Peters Publishing, which brought out five obscure nonfiction titles in 1952-53 and then vanished without a trace.

The Chicago-based paperback line Dick Lupoff has invented here, Paige Publications, might well have existed in the early fifties. Those individuals who authored the nine titles produced during Paige’s two-year lifespan could have written for Hanro Corporation or Peters Publishing. (The anecdote Lupoff relates about the purchase of the Del Marston private eye novel is based on a real incident involving a first novelist, a forties Chicago book and magazine publisher, and a well known editor and writer.) The artist who painted the covers for Buccaneer Blood, Cry Ruffian!, and Death in the Ditch might have done similar work for Falcon or Lion or Zenith or any of the other small, independent, and now all-but-forgotten publishers. It is not only possible but probable that the nine Paige books would have such poor distribution and sales that very few copies survive to the present. It is also entirely feasible that Paige would have been forced out of business not only for financial reasons but for the political one which Lupoff postulates.

The paperback original’s cover art was reflective (as were the books themselves) of the newfound sophistication of post-World War II society, and was a central selling point. Artists used the “peekaboo sex” approach to catching the reader’s eye: beautiful women depicted either nude, as seen from the side or rear, or with a great deal of cleavage and/or leg showing, in a variety of provocative poses. One such cover on a Paige title, portraying one such beautiful woman in a typically sultry pose, is the springboard for the action in The Cover Girl Killer. It, too, might well have existed.

Today’s paperback collecting market also plays an important role in the narrative. Scotty Anderson could have been modeled on any of a dozen actual collectors, all of whom are as eccentric and benignly monomaniacal as Anderson. (I use the phrase “eccentric and benignly monomaniacal” advisedly, since my own collecting mania approaches a rather altered state. As does Lupoff’s, I suspect.) Gary Lovisi, accorded almost mythical status in these pages, is a real person who does in fact publish a collectors’ journal called Paperback Parade; he also publishes a magazine devoted to hardboiled crime fiction, and is a noted fiction writer in his own right.

As enjoyable as are the publishing and collecting elements of The Cover Girl Killer, this and Lupoff’s other mysteries are much more than nostalgia set pieces. He knows the social and political climates of the eras of which he writes, and sprinkles his stories with sometimes wry, sometimes angry, often insightful comments on the prejudices, excesses, misconceptions, and other prevailing attitudes of those bygone days. In his previous two “Killer” mysteries, the achievements of and problems faced by African Americans in the early decades of this century are brought into sharp focus. In The Cover Girl Killer, a central plot component and theme is the Spanish Civil War of the mid-thirties, in particular the activities of the Lincoln Brigade—the several thousand Americans who fought on the side of the Loyalists, half of whom were killed in action or died as a result of wounds and disease.

Lupoff’s interest in the Spanish Civil War stems from the fact that one of his cousins was a Lincoln Brigadier who gave his life to the struggle against Fascist tyranny in Spain. Thus his description of the hardships faced by these American freedom fighters, both in Spain and on U.S. soil after the survivors’ return, is deeply felt and justifiably bitter. As one of the characters, a former Brigadier, says to Hobart Lindsey, “I keep thinking, maybe somebody will care about the Lincolns someday. Dumb, eh? [People] didn’t care then, and they don’t care now. Soon we’ll all be gone and no one will know.” Lupoff cares passionately and wants other to care, so that thousands of men and women will not have died in vain.

Readers unfamiliar with the series may have gained an impression from the foregoing that the “Killer” novels are primarily time trips. This is not the case. Lupoff chronicles the present as effectively as he does the past; his mysteries are thoroughly modern in their depiction of the nineties in all of the decade’s chaotic, harsh, farcical, frustrating and fascinating complexity. Lindsey, in his capacity as an insurance claims adjuster, and Marvia Plum, in hers as a Berkeley homicide cop, make expert use of the latest in technology and other contemporary investigative techniques. Their personal relationship is likewise modern, not only in its interracial aspect but in its spiritual and sexual contexts as well.

Just as change is the lifeblood of healthy human existence, growth and transition are the lifeblood of good series fiction. Few detective series, even when perpetrated by skilled writers, can last long without their principal characters undergoing a natural progression of changes, both positive and negative, in attitude, lifestyle, relationships. Neither Lindsey nor Marvia nor Lindsey’s mother is quite the same person he or she was in The Comic Book Killer. More changes take place in this novel; one is major and will probably surprise fans, though it opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities for future entries. This, too is the stuff of good series fiction. The Cover Girl Killer ensures that Lindsey’s and Marvia’s readers will come back for more—and that they’ll likely bring a few friends along with them.

No question about it: Richard Lupoff knows.