In the early and mid Eighties Zebra cranked out a handful of paperbacks that featured photos of knives slicing through various fruit, and in one case, a rose—not too obvious now! You'll recognize a few names:
Joe Lansdale's first novel,
Act of Love; two from hack supreme
William W. Johnstone; and two from "Philip Straker," an pseudonym of
Edward Lee, who would become a prolific extreme horror author in later years, and from what I can tell, he has disowned these two early titles.
According to various Goodreads and online reviews, these are more police procedural/serial killer thrillers, and at least one, Without Mercy by "Leonard Jordan"—another pseudonym, this one used by prolific pulp writer Len Levinson—is worth a read.
2 comments:
(Zwolf)
Wow, there's some serious psychological somethin' going on with the designs of those covers. You don't have to be Georgia O'Keefe to figure out something seriously twisted is going on there. Serious Fulci "New York Ripper" vibes. What's amazing is how widespread that knife/fruit phenomenon was. Not long ago I read Blood Innocents by Thomas H. Cook, which had an axe in a birthday cake for a cover ( https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/iTcAAOSw4nVfYnJf/s-l400.jpg ), but these go way past that. :)
Well, as AC/DC said, "Let me cut your cake with my knife"!
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