Had I But Groaned by Carter Brown

Her magic was as old as the hills. 

She just took off her clothes and there he was..spellbound.

Robert McGinnis Cover

She was a witch, naturally. Why else would an able-minded young man accept an invitation to a dark old house with a curse upon it. Where a lake holds a dread secret and someone is about to die a horrible death? Which witch is going to get Larry Baker as she goes bump in the night?

Signet Reprint

Larry Baker walks into a blood-chilling, swinging Sabbath complete with an old hag, a dangerous enchanting witch, and one ripe virgin, about to be sacrificed.....

UK Edition

Printing History

Horwtiz Publications Inc

Numbered Series #142 1968

New American Library

Signet Books

D3380 February 1968

Y7222 1976

New English Library

Four Square Books

as The Witches

#2495 May 1969

The Vulcan Disaster by George Warren

The microfilm was missing.

Already more than a dozen men had been brutally murdered for it.

And Nick Carter was scheduled to be next.

Around the world....on the trail of murder

Saigon

It was the last days of the war, and in the middle of the bloodshed Nick has to find a man named Walter Corbin. And the roll of microfilm. He found his man just in time to see his head scattered into a million pieces. 

Hong Kong

The trail from sampan city, where silence was safety, to a series of brutal, vicious murders, Nick Carter Killmaster was certain of one thing. The organization behind those killings had more at stake than roll of film.

Washington

Nick needed an update from Hawk. He called the States, but AXE had vanished! Free to die in Hong Kong gutter while powerful men made plans for global revenge!

Printing History

Written by George Warren

Award AQ 1600 1976

Trivia

Noteworthy cover: Sybil Pincus, editor for Award Books, her successor Peter Titus, and Award employee Tony Puzo (Mario Puzo's son) all posed for the cover.

The Wind Up Doll by Carter Brown

Rick Holman investigates the love life of a Hollywood sensation in a fast-action thriller about movies, moguls, and murder.

Robert McGinnis Cover 

The screen siren reclined on a nine-foot bed wearing black silk pajamas just sheer enough to show why she was the international symbol of sex. When Toni Astor's latest Romeo does a fatal nose dive from a balcony, private eye Rick Holman draws the delectable challenge of interrogating a movie star. The dangerous challenge of trying to find out why the girl with the lethal curves is murder in men!

Printing History 

Horwitz Publications Inc

Numbered Series #116 1963

International Edition Series #48 1965

Double Edition Series #12A 1982

w/Zelda

Double Edition Series

New American Library

Signet Books

D2413 January 1964

T4826 November 1971

 T4826 November 1971 (Canada)

AE1629 July 1982 

w/Zelda

The SpyWho Didn't by Jack Laflin

Gregory Hiller's most incredible adventure

Gregory Hiller reviewed all the aspects of the weird case that had started so unexpectedly three weeks earlier. an unreconstructed Nazi. Twenty million dollars worth of eighteenth century Spanish gold. Explosives in large quantities. it added up to one inescapable conclusion: A plot, widespread, lethal in purpose, well organized in execution. So intent had Hiller become on simultaneously thinking and keeping Von Eckhardt's group under surveillance, he was completely unprepared to learn he was no longer alone, that a second interested spectator had joined the scene. He heard a female voice say, "Do not more or you will regret it." The voice was pure velvet, but the solid object boring into his backbone was unmistakably steel.

Printing History

Written by Jack Laflin

Belmont B50-691 July 1966

The Turncoat by Leon Lazarus

Wanted: Gregor Salobin

Political Defector

Russian Scientist

Missing Person

Universal Edition

In Salobin's head was enough information to keep the United States on top of the Soviets for years. Salobin had been feeding the CIA until things got too hot in Russia and he slipped over the border into Turkey, boarding a train for Istanbul. But he never arrived. Washington got  a note: Send a man to Beirut to meet a two-bit hood named Rafei. Rafei would take Nick Carter to where Salobin was being held prisoner. But someone else knew about the meeting. Someone who was planning an ambush that would eliminate Nick and the most important Russian defector in ten years. In a single burst of machine gun fire!!

Printing History

Written by Leon Lazarus

Award AQ 1581 1976

Universal 426 18518 1978

Butler #1: The Hydra Conspiracy by Philip Kirk

From CIA agent to murder suspect

Butler was a CIA man who criticized the Agency too much. At least that is what they told him. The next day he was the prime suspect in a sensational murder case. Or did a foreign power want him to get rattled enough to give away Agency secrets? Butler was not going to wait and find out. Escaping to Mexico where he kept a secret bank account, Butler got ready for a very pleasant temporary retirement. Unfortunately, things were not going to be that easy.

Printing History

Written by Leonard Levinson

Leisure Books

Nordon Publications Inc 

8439 655 January 1979

Dorchester Publishing Company Inc

8439 2038 1983

Who Killed Doctor Sex? by Carter Brown

The movie colony panics when the favorite psychiatrist dies and his records fall into the hands of an avenging blackmailer....

Robert McGinnis Cover

Stamp out sex!

One by one the movieland big names heard the deceased psychiatrist's taped played back their intimate, sinful secrets. And one by one they waited for the touch. When it came it was a shocker. The asking price was not cash, but laying off the sex! Love life in Hollywood comes to a dead standstill while troubleshooter Rick Holman tracks down a strange criminal. The avenging blackmailer who is out to kill sex, even if it means murder.

Their psychiatrist was nuts. 

The Hollywood movie queen told him all about her irregular sex life with lurid details painted right in. Her ex-husband explained just why their famous marriage was a bust. And the buxom secretary disclosed the cozy role she played in an unusual domestic setup. But they did not know that "Dr. Sex" was a happy voyeur who taped all their sizzling confessions. And played them back privately, for kicks. A group of panicky playmate hires Rick to stop a blackmailer from turning private sins into public scandal when a well-known psychiatrist is killed accidentally, on purpose.

Signet Photo Cover

Printing History

Horwitz Publications Inc.

Numbered Series #122 1965

New American Library

Signet Books

D2581 November 1964

T5744 1974

The Snake Flag Conspiracy by Saul Wernick

All Strangers.

All Unlikely Killers.

All Sharing One Common Goal.

Destroy Nick Carter!

Universal Edition

Economic Disaster

 The KGB had an agent in Boston with a foolproof plan to wreck the American economy in its Bicentennial year. By forcing the biggest banks to dump all their stocks at the same time. A plant in one of Boston's old families. And the manipulation of their cast financial power, would trigger total economic collapse!

Award Edition

Nick Carter Killmaster N3 had to discover the identity of the phoney "Boston Brahmin" and make his sudden death look like an accident, before the collapse began. But there was a welcoming committee of thousands of killers waiting for him.

George Gross Cover

Don't tread on me.

Do.... and you die.

Printing History

Written by Saul Wernick

Award AQ1576 1976

Universal 426 18542 1978

Charter 441 77193 December 1981

The Up-Tight Blonde by Carter Brown

One fair-haired bird leads to four naked chicks.

And the liveliest exposure to murder Al Wheeler ever had.

Signet Edition with Robert McGinnis Cover

They looked different with their clothes on. But Lieutenant Al Wheeler was a very perceptive cop, and with the chicks involved in this case he did not mind asking questions after hours. What the answers added up to were two blondes, a brunette, and a redhead, with more than four nude portraits and one dead artist lover in common. 

Horwitz Edition

Judging from the barest of facts, Al figured he had stumbled onto a new kind of flesh game. But it was not until he started to strip away the alibis that he realized he didn't know the rules. And someone was going to make certain that he didn't pass go again.....

Signet Reprint

Printing History

Horwitz Publications

Numbered Series #148 1970

New American Library

Signet Books

P3955 August 1969

P3955 Canada

Y7545 1978

Y7545 Canada

The Ambassador's Plot by Stephen Frances

John Gail Spy Chiller

A deadly new twist to the game of espionage, blackmail, and seduction. 

A high speed journey into terror and sudden death for British agent John Gail.

John Gail's new assignment focused on a highly respected, silver-haired British diplomat. It began with blackmail, with the help of a sealed camera, a two-way mirror, a vial of aphrodisiac, and a beautiful 15 year old who had a secret arsenal of erotic talents.

The mission was planned to block a power play in Paris and prevent Europe from exploding into war. It seemed fool-proof. But only a fool would trust a school girl when the fate of nations are at stake.

Printing History

Written by Stephen Frances

Award A570X 1970

Formerly titled The Sad And Tender Flesh.

Shadow Of A Lady by Holly Roth

An Inner Sanctum Mystery

Award 1965 Edition

Was Scotland Yard wrong? 

Was that body in the trunk the red-haired green-eyed lady?

Was her fiance a megalomaniac murderer?

Was the French-Swiss border road another death trap?

There was the lady who fell off the mountain. There was the body in the trunk. There was the girl who lived high up in the never-never land between Switzerland and France. And there was John Seton-Smith, on trial for the murder of the women he loved. 

Printing History

Copyright Holly Roth 1957

Award A133F March 1965.

The Fanatics Of Al Asad by Saul Wernick

The President and Vice President have been killed.

An Arab killer team has kidnapped the acting President.

Their ransom, the destruction of Israel by the United States!

Nick Carter has only 48 hours to find and destroy the Arab fanatics.

Universal Edition

Mortar Attack on White House!

President and Vice President asassinated!

House Speaker kidnapped!

Four inch headlines screamed from the front pages. There was only one way to save American democracy, find the Speaker of the House before the insane terrorists carried out their ultimate threat. The trail of terror led to New York City. Somewhere in Manhattan lurked "The Lion", Al Asad. The name of a group of fanatics who thoutht they had a divine mission: Terror, assassination, and international blackmail. It was the job for one man, alone. But even when Nick  Carter "Killmaster", found them, any wrong move would mean instant death for the next President of the United States.

Award Edition

Printing History

Written by Saul Wernick

Award AQ1575 1976

Universal 426 18921 1978

Blonde On A Broomstick by Carter Brown

Rick Holman is taken for a ride by a covey of curvaceous witches.

And flies straight into murder!

Horwitz Edition

The pot boils......

It's a heady brew

It's spiked with plenty of

Black (and blonde and brunette) Magic.

And who's in the soup? Rick Holman of course.

Robert McGinnis Cover

Stirring things up are four witches:

Sultry songstress Julie: She's said no to the biggest natural yes deal of her life.

Sex kitten Sally: Self appointed private eye whose lovely eyes are a little too private.

Dark dazzling Stella: Mistress of the Shades (from Hell to bedroom), queen bee of the hair-raising hive.

Wacky Barbara: Demon possessed and starving for seduction.

Horwitz Reprint

The problem is:

Which witch is which? Rick had better find the answer fast. He is up to his ears in it. It's a murky case of sink or swim, in a witches cauldron!

Printing History

Horwitz Publications

Numbered Series #129 1966

International Edition #74 1972

ISBN 7255 0168

Printed in Adelaide, South Australia 

New American Library

Signet Books

D2831 January 1966

Cover by Robert McGinnis

The List by James Fritzhand

Every American intelligence agent in the Orient was on the list.

Each a target for assassination.

Unless Nick Carter Killmaster could get the list first!

Universal Edition

A trail of blood.

Flying to Hong Kong to purchase a microfilmed list of U.S. intelligence agents more important than twenty nuclear secrets. Nick Carter found the seller dead, the film vanished, and an international squad of killers waiting for him. Nick had one lead. A lead that would take him from the elegant museum world of Hong Kong to an abandoned temple where instant death was the new religion, and the rites performed by an evil high priestess of killing!

George Gross cover

An AXE obituary column

Bret Rawlings: Agent N-6, sent to Hong Kong to purchase the microfilm. Dead of a phoney OD.

Poy Chu: Chinese double agent. He had the microfilm to sell. But now he is dead.

Wai Tsang: Poy Chu's underground contact who tried to make the deal with Nick. He was dead before he could open his mouth.

Tou Wan: Women whose name was scrawled on the back of Poy Chu's museum ticket. She had the film in her possession. Trouble was she had been dead for 2,000 years!

Award Edition

Printing History

Written by James Fritzhand

Award AQ1556 1976

Universal 426 18550 1978

Charter 441 48466 1980

The Flagellator by Carter Brown

She was Hollywood's hottest sex goddess, until a killer cast her as the world's most glamorous corpse.

Robert McGinnis Cover

One nice thing about being a sadist is that you can give more often than receive. Trouble is, your recipients are not always grateful. For Theo Altman, film director and torture master, the number of dissatisfied customers was legion. Prime, among them, a curvacious, copper-haired secretary whose private secrets were as well kept as she was, a screen goddess whose sudden flight from sanity was as mysterious as her fall from the cliff, and a very photogenic corpse.

Horwitz Edition

Rick Holman's job was to sift out the crimes from the punishments and tie up the whole package for a well heeled producer. But when someone rewrote the scenario, adding blackmail, double-cross, and a Hollywood ending that could very well be Rick's own. She was a nymphet from the Oklahoma backwoods who had bed-hopped her way into stardom, Fluer Falaise, the Hollywood wonder chick who did not believe the sky was the limit, until the day it started falling. Fluer's decline started on her honeymoon, with her husband's drowning, continued through her second marriage, which put her in a sanitarium. It forced her into low grade pictures and even lower grade love affairs. It ultimately drover her right over the edge of the cliff. Her life so perfectly followed a movieland scenario that Holman could not understand why anyone would question her suicide attempt. But someone did, then someone else, and pretty soon the plot began to thicken as the script of Fluer's life.

Signet Reprint

Printing History

Horwitz Publications

Numbered Series #145 1969

Printed in Hong Kong

New American Library

Signet Books

D3776 February 1969

Y7403 1977

Secret Mission: Peking by Don Smith

Programmed for destruction.

Phil Sherman had a private score to settle with the Chinese. He also had a vast knowledge of computers and an excessive love for comfort, not to mention a passion for women and vodka. All of which made him unlikely espionage material. And that was made him the perfect undercover man for the U.S. Anti-Nuclear Section. His assignment seemed simple enough. All he had to do was to sell a black market computer behind the Iron Curtain. But this was no ordinary computer. 

Destined for the Far East, purchased to help the Chinese perfect a super nuclear bomb, this computer was programed to explode "by accident" and take the Chinese atomic facility with it. But when the computer arrived at its destination, it had developed an unplanned kink. If the Chinese technicians took the computer apart they were sure to discover the hidden bomb mechanism. When they did, anything can happen, including WW III. Somehow Phil Sherman had to get to China and get that computer back in working order. Fast. So it could blow up China's atomic center before Peking blew up the  world.

Printing History

Award #A297 1968

Award #AN1209 1972

Trivia

Riding on the success on the Nick Carter Killmaster Adventures, Award Books published the Secret Mission series from 1968 until 1978.

Death Message: Oil 74-2 by Dee Stuart and Ansel Chapin

Nick Carter had only three hours to solve the deadly riddle. And he had been stripped of his weapons, gagged, and tied in a neat package for night deposit. In the middle of the Caribbean!

Award Edition

The balance of death

Wide-eyed idealist streamed to the Caribbean from all over the world to march to the ecology and "save the world" banner. And OIL, the Organization for Industrial Limitation, signed them up and told them exactly what to do!

It seemed harmless enough until AXE agent James Casey was found murdered on a Trinidad beach. The message traced in the sand by his trembling fingers read: OIL 74-2......

Universal Edition

Printing History

Written by Dee Stuart and Ansel Chapin

Award AQ1559 1976

Universal 426 18948 1978

Fraternity Row by Carlton Joyce

She learned the facts of life and love on..................

Tom Miller Cover

The Promise

"I propose to convince Miss Gilford that it would be sporting of her to remove her clothing so that each of you may satisfy your curiosity about her physical proportions."

"I am merely promising to deliver the buxom miss to you au naturel."

"As for other activities, I am sure that any gentlemen of Delta Mu is quite capable of seizing the initiative in a situation so fraught with possibilities."

The Fulfillment 

Late that evening, Marty Lou Gilford, a coed no one had gotten to first base with, walked causally down the staircase leading to the lounge room of the frat house, completely in the buff...

The Corrupter

Chaz Graycen, III, president of Delta Mu, who boasted that he could do anything, and often did.

Published by Monarch Books , Inc 

#366 August 1963

The Invisible Flamini by Carter Brown

Collecting beautiful chicks was an expensive hobby.

And a deadly pastime for anybody who chickened out.

Robert McGinnis Cover

The dirtiest show in town.

Axel Barnaby was a collector of beautiful women. He bought them, pleasured them, then sent them on their way. Wiser and wealthier. He always got what he wanted, until he set his sights on the rare Flamini.

Anna Flamini was a luscious gem hard to come by, a hot blooded actress who didn't dig the role she was paid to play. But when she pulled a disappearing act a lot of off set people started shooting, and Hollywood trouble shooter Rick Holman found himself with a major part in the dirtiest, deadliest show in town!

Horwitz Edition

Printing History

Horwtiz Publications

Numbered Series #163 1972

Published in Hong Kong 

ISBN 7255 0177

New American Library

Signet Books

T4854 December 1971

The Green Wolf Connection by Dennis Lynds

From Vegas to Rome to a tiny oil-rich sheikdom. 

Nick Carter goes on the trail of a terrorist so deadly even the Arabs wanted him killed.

Universal Edition

Merchants of Terror

The Arab:

Khalid al Wahli, the Green Wolf. Born and raised in the desert, 

he practiced unheard of methods of killing and torture.

The Israeli:

Mendel Tadah. Even from his cell in an Arab prison, he had ways of staging brutal, 

devastating raids on the Mufti's villages.

The Irish women:

Dark-haired, beautiful, trained by the IRA. 

Sheila Kelly knew how to lure her targets to out of the way hotels and into deadly ambushes.

The mysterious Colonel:

A Lawrence of Arabia, but with a twist. He wanted to dominate the world.

Award Edition

Nick Carter "Killmaster" had to turn them against each other before their secret plan went into action. And every capital from Washington to Peking received a death blow.

Charter Edition

Printing History

Written by Dennis Lynds

Award AQ1546 1976

Universal 426 18681 1978

Charter 441 30328 1978

The Passionate Pagan by Carter Brown

Private Eye Danny Boyd investigates the odd antics of a Chinese art society and on Oriental beauty who tries to commission him for murder!

Robert McGinnis Cover

"I want you to kill him."
Laka Tong looked like a love goddess from a pagan sex cult. Jet-haired, silk-sheathed, with a man-trap body, and murder in her eyes. The exotic Eurasian had come all the way from Hawaii to bargain with NY private eye Danny Boyd. Her offer was cash on the line for somebody's corpse. Danny was a tough pro, and a very smart operator. He should have known what he was asking for when he said no to the deal...but yes to the dame.

Horwitz Edition

Printing History

Horwitz Publications, Inc.
Numbered Series #106 1963
International Edition Series #57 1969
(Printed in Hong Kong)

New American Library
Signet Books
G2259 February 1963
T4489 1970

Another Dame by Carter Brown

Another copy of The Dame

International Edition #13

Published in 1962 by Horwitz Publications, Inc.

Assignment: Intercept by Marilyn Granbeck

Hidden in the steaming Yucatan is the secret HQ of a maniacally brilliant Chinese scientist.

Armed with a weapon that can trigger flaming death anywhere in the world!

UK Edition

Modern warfare and ancient terrors

Foolproof American missiles were going off course and accidentally hitting Russian ships. Russian rockets were hitting American targets. somewhere deep in the Yucatan jungle, in a forgotten Maya temple, a demented Red Chinese scientist was using a lethal device for sidetracking missiles and Nick Carter, Killmaster, had to get into that temple and dismantle the equipment before the Russians and the Americans stated bombing each other for real......

Award Edition

Trio of Death

A man, a women, and a bast would anything to keep Nick Carter from staying alive!

Dr Liu: Brilliant Chinese scientist with a plan for starting a war between Russian and the U.S.A. Only minutes away from triumph, but Nick stood in his way.

Maria Fuentes: Stunning Mexican beauty with an incredible body who had very special reason for desiring Nick. She wanted him dead.

Balam: Natives' sacred jaguar, with stiletto sharp teeth and claws. Staved for weeks to turn it into a killing machine. And now there was a man in his pit...Nick!

Printing History

Written by Marilyn Granbeck

Award AQ1512 1976

Universal 426 18913 1978

Star/Universal 352 3093 1981

Trivia

The Universal and Star printings have different ISBN on the fly sleeve than on the outer cover.

The Never-Was Girl by Carter Brown

They said she was just a drunk delusion.

But he was dead certain she was real...and dead.

Robert McGinnis Cover

An international screen idol hires Rick Holman to finds out whether he lost his girl or his mind.

Horwitz Edition

The tawny Hollywood primitive dazzled the famous British actor when she threw off her clothes and whirled into a pagan love dance. He thought she was the hit of the party, but all the other guests claimed she was simply never there!

Signet Reprint

Matinee idol Robert Giles had an unforgettable evening with Dixie. He took her away from the cocktail party to a love nest on the beach and woke up beside her bloody corpse. When the body vanished the next morning and everyone, including his fiancee, denied Dixie was ever at the party, He called on Rick for help. Troubleshooter Rick Holman faces one of his most dangerous cases. A Hollywood murder drama with a plot that calls for sinister characters, serious blackmail, sizzling seduction, and a body written out of the script. The Never-Was Girl.

Printing History

Horwitz Publications

Numbered Series #118 1964

International Edition Series #49 1965

New American Library

Signet Books

G2457 April 1964

T5247 November 1972

T5247 November 1972 (Canada)

The Ultimate Code by William Odell

Delivery of a top-secret decoding machine lands Nick Carter in the middle of a CIA commando operation. 

A last ditch effort to stave off global war.

Universal Edition

A deadly case of mistaken identities

Nick Carter demoted? Losing the top secret equipment he was assigned to bring into Greece? Taking orders from a middle ranking CIA operative?

Star Edition

It was the beginning of the most dangerous assignment of Nick's career, and it was a mistake. Borrowed by the National Security Agency to transport classified decoding equipment to Athens. Nick suddenly found himself a square peg in a round hole, the odd-man-out in a Kamikaze-style commando operation that would whisk him far from Athens.

Award Edition

Nick Carter will find himself within an inch of his life at the hands of the Greek Army, the Russians, and a ruthless traitor among the commandos. The final question was...Who would kill him first?

Charter Edition

One of them was a traitor, but which one?

Gordon: The CIA operative who refused to believe Nick was carrying top-secret equipment?

Kasner: The linguist who had trouble speaking English?

Marika: The beautiful Greek who knew as much about Greek politics as the ruling generals?

Evans: The doctor whose bag of medical supplies turned into a radio transmitter?

Vlarkos: The burly Greek who had an eye on Marika and was itching for an excuse to kill Nick?

Jeorgos: The old man who knew the secrets of the mountains, and a few others besides?

Charter Reprint

Printing History

Written by William Odell

Award AQ1486 1975

Universal 426 18737 1978

Charter 84308 ($1.50) 1978

Star 352 30559 1979

Carter Reprint 84309 ($2.25) 1981