Monday Morning Wake Up-

I can never resist a good dust jacket or piece of cover art. Here's something from my shelves to wake you up a bit on a sleepy morning after we all stayed up too late watching the Oscars-


The book was published in 1939, and the cover art is by Walter Frame [1885-1957], a commercial artist who did dust jackets, magazine advertisements for RCA radios, and so on. But what about the book itself? Damned if I know... well, "Francis Bonnamy" was the pseudonym of used by Audrey Walz, a prolific murder-mystery writer in the 30s and 40s. Frankly, I've never been able to get past the first paragraph-

"We saw it that Wednesday afternoon just as our horses came over the hill and looked down into the valley where the ranch lay. It was just something shapeless lying on the grass beside the ranch house then, but I think we all felt evil in the crumpled mass that showed directly before us through the jack pines as the trail bent over the last hill. It was as if the light of that brilliant summer day had been cut off, as if the mountains had reached up their red fingers to shut off the sun."

It may just be me, but I feel a dark and stormy night coming on...