Friday, November 20, 2009

Paperback Cover Cavalcade 7

The Lonely Ones by Samuel Selvon (Digit Books D249, Apr 1959)
West Indians invade Great Britain in their thousands. A medley of 'spades,' freezing in the fog, basking in the Cythera-summer, rackety and thrilled, lonely and getting nowhere... The author depicts them and their plight expertly.
Originally published as The Lonely Londoners (1956). Selvon (1923-1994) was a West Indian writer, originally a journalist on the Trinidad Guardian before moving to England where he worked as a civil servant before turning freelance, writing novels and radio plays. The Lonely Londoners concerns immigrant West Indians and the problems they face, from poor housing to racial discrimination.

Go, Man, Go! by Edward De Roo (Digit Books R357, May 1960)
Faster! Faster! Faster! It's real cool, man. When you're a kid in a hot-rod, you just wanta GO! And there ain't nothin' or nobody gonna stop you, 'cause behind that wheel you're the most.
__And if you're in with the gang—you ain't never gonna chicken out on 'em, 'cause you can't, you'd die first!
Reprints an Ace Books original (D-406, 1959), a classic amongst collectors of JD/hot-rodding novels. De Roo penned a handful of other youthsploitation novels, The Fires of Youth (Ace S-105, 1955), The Young Wolves (Ace D-343, 1959, reprinted by Digit in 1959), Rumble at the Housing Project (Ace D-417, 1960, reprinted by Digit as The Big Rumble, 1960) and Little Caesars (Ace D-486, 1961). The Web offers nothing on De Roo beyond book titles—and all I've found out myself (via Al Hubin's Crime Fiction Bibliography) is that his full name was Edward John De Roo, born 7 July 1922, died 20 June 1988.

The Ton Boys by Ken Leary (Digit Books R526, 1961) Cover by R. A. Osborne
They were smart young kids with souped up motor bikes, ornamented black leather jackets and skid-lids.
__They larked around and took big risks; but, in the main, they were harmless enough. Until, that is, crime came unbidden into their midst...
An original Digit novel, probably written by Digit regular Macgregor Urquhart.

No comments:

Post a Comment

BEAR ALLEY BOOKS

BEAR ALLEY BOOKS
Click on the above pic to visit our sister site Bear Alley Books