Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Adopting Crider’s Baby

Texas author and blogger Bill Crider, probably best recognized for having penned a long-running, lighthearted mystery series starring Sheriff Dan Rhodes (Dead, to Begin With), died yesterday evening at age 76. I didn’t know him well, but I had tremendous respect for his work, his generosity in regards to other writers, and what can only be called his gentlemanly demeanor. Knowing that Crider’s remaining time among us was short (he spent the last year and a half undergoing medical treatments for a virulent variety of cancer), I had recently been thinking of a way to honor his memory once he was gone. I ultimately settled on continuing, in The Rap Sheet, a popular feature from his own blog: “PaperBack.”

Almost every day for the last seven-plus years, Bill Crider’s Pop Culture Magazine posted the front and back covers from a vintage paperback—primarily crime novels, but with science fiction and horror fiction titles thrown in occasionally. I can’t promise to keep up that sort of pace, but I think Bill would appreciate my extending the life of his “PaperBack” postings, even if only on a once- or twice-a-week basis. And I believe Killer Covers readers will enjoy what becomes of this series. Click here to keep up with all the offerings.

3 comments:

Art Scott said...

This is a neat and appropriate memorial to an important paperback collector and scholar, my friend of 40 years. Keep 'em coming.

Howard said...

As you're no doubt aware, Bill loved old sleaze paperbacks. A few months ago, he announced that he had gotten, finally, after years of searching, a copy of a book that was some sort of holy grail to him. This was ANOTHER MAN'S CLAIM, by "Henry Whittier" (Harry Whittington). Bill immediately read this tome and pronounced it to be awful, in spite of his great admiration for most of Mr. Whittington's work. He also said the cover was pretty risqué and didn't want to present it in his blog.

This, of course, only whetted my curiosity. Nothing at all was found in a web search. Any chance that you have, or can get a scan of that book's cover? You could run it in the PaperBack section. Let the rest of us take a gander at something that Bill treasured.

J. Kingston Pierce said...

Hey, Howard:

Yes, I remember Bill mentioning that long-lost/long-sought Whittington work in his blog: https://billcrider.blogspot.com/2017/07/bonus-ffb-on-wednesday-another-mans.html

I don't have the cover from Another Man's Claim in my computer files, but I shall keep my eyes open for it.

Cheers,
Jeff