Another China Doll

Tonight I was looking through my book collection and spotted another copy of The China Doll. This one is the first printing in the UK by Tandem Books in 1968. Universal Publishing and Distributing Corp owned both Award and Tandem books.

Checkmate in Rio

The third book in the Nick Carter Killmaster Series is Checkmate In Rio. Checkmate was written by Valerie Moolman and published by Award Books in May 1964. Nick is paired with a female spy, Rosalind Addler, to find out what happened to six CIA agents in Rio de Janeiro. Gun running and beautiful Carla Langley are on the plate by our spy. His cover is a millionaire playboy Robert Millbank.

Some cover throughout the series.

 More covers from the Award Books

 German Edition (1969) and UK Edition (1973 reprint)

August 1979 US Edition

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Thanks for stopping by.

High Fashion in Homicide

Here we have a copy of  High Fashion in Homicide. This was published in 1958 by Horwitz Piblications. Our hero, Johnny French, is on a luxury yacht, when a brunette finds a body in her cabin. He then loses the corpse after a knock on the head. The corpse is none other than international playboy Jimmy Jamieson. Too many J's. Johnny sticks through the caper and eventually bags the bad guys.

Cutie Cashed His Chips

Another early Carter Brown Edition. Cutie Cashed His Chips was published by Horwitz in 1955. This title was revised and published in the United States in February 1961 under the title The Million Dollar Babe.

Horwitz Edition 

New American Library Edition

The China Doll

The China Doll: Written By Micheal Avallone and Valerie Moolman. Published in April 1964.

1st and 2nd printing (July 1965)

4th (1968) and 5th printing (1970)

Award used the same design for all five printings as one can see from the above scans. The China Doll is one of several rare occurrence of the printings being correct on the book cover or fly-sleeve. The majority of the early Award Editions were either incorrect printing stated on the book cover or on the fly-sleeve.

Digit House Edition

I don't have a scan of a Tandem Edition.

Last Run Spy Run copy

Forgot one other copy. This is the December 1965 reprint published by Brown Watson LTD. Digit House

A very early Carter Brown

Curves for A Coroner

Run, Spy, Run

The first Nick Carter adventure.

Run, Spy, Run: Written by Micheal Avallone and Valerie Moolman. Published in February 1964. This adventure introduces our hero. This book also introduces an archenemy and an fellow spy. Mr Judas, the archenemy, will come back time and time again. Julia Baron is a fellow agent within the organization OCI.

Left picture is the First Printing and the right is the Second Printing

(L) Third Printing and (R) Fourth Printing

Last one is the United Kingdom Edition, both 1st and 2nd printings were the same.





















It was common practice to use the same cover art for subsequent printings, as in the cases above.

Enjoy.

Nick Carter Killmaster

Nick Carter was published in a series of spy adventures published from February 1964 until May 1990. There were 261 books published by three different book companies. First by Award Books until January 1977, then by Ace Charter from June 1978 until June 1987, and finally by Jove Books until the end of the series. There was no actual author credited to each book, but rather Nick Carter was used as a house pseudonym. Nick served with the US Government in a fictional spy organization called AXE. Nick carried three weapons through his adventures: A gun, Wilhelmina, is a stripped down German Luger; Hugo, a pearl handled stiletto; and finally Pierre, the poison gas bomb, in a small egg shaped device.

Short Bio on Carter Brown

Carter Brown was the name of a byline used by Alan Geoffry Yates. Yates was born in London on  August 1st 1923. He moved to Sydney in 1948 after WW II. He began writing in 1948 and a full time writer in 1953. His first Carter Brown was published in September 1951 with the title The Lady is Murder under the byline Peter Carter Brown. Carter Brown has been published upwards to over 80,000,000 books. He published books in USA from 1958 (The Body) until 1983 (Double of The Pipes Are Calling/The Early Boyd). Mr Yates died on May 5th 1985.

The beginning of ........

It should be pointed out that I began reading Carter Brown a full year before even starting to read a Nick Carter. The season being that I found numerous used book stores that sold the Carter Browns. With no job as of yet for a teenager, money was through an allowance from my parents. I got my first job in March of 1981 with a local grocery store that my mother worked at. With some money I set out to the local book store/dime store.  The store did not carry any Carter Browns but did carry Nick Carters. So I started reading and collect through the past 30 years expanding to read other authors as well. Today, my collections is over 1000 titles and growing. I have expanded my reach into the foreign editions of each author. I have about 150 Australian Carter Brown titles and the same amount of United Kingdom Nick Carters as well as a few others from other countries. Thanks for stopping by.

First Post

First up, are the two books that started it all. One from each author.

Negative in Blue was published in 1974 by New American Library

 Pleasure Island was published in 1981 by Ace Charter.