Amazon discontinued the ability to create images using their SiteStripe feature and in their infinite wisdom broke all previously created images on 12/31/23. Many blogs used this feature, including this one. Expect my archives to be a hot mess of broken book cover images until I can slowly comb through 20 years of archives to make corrections.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Tricky Dick

I'm a big fan of "library browsing." I always have a plan of attack when I go into a bookstore, but with libraries I prefer to wander aimlessly around the stacks. So the names "Howard Hunt" and "E. Howard Hunt" did ring a faint bell in the back of my librarian brain. However, silly goose that I am - I had no idea the writer was also that E. Howard Hunt.

You know, the E. Howard Hunt who orchestrated the Watergate burglary that ultimately led to President Richard Nixon's resignation. Yeah, that guy.

The interesting things you learn by reading press releases, that's all I got to say. Not only was Hunt a CIA agent and Nixon's muscle - he was apparently one hell of a writer.

He was a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship. Doubly impressive when you learn that he beat out two other writers for the honor. Oh, just Truman Capote and Gore Vidal. Maybe you've heard of them?

House Dick
was originally published in 1961 under a pseudonym and in a grand twist of irony, tells the story of a lowly detective investigating a burglary and murder at a Washington D.C. hotel (ahem, no not that hotel). An inspired reprint from the gang over at Hard Case Crime.

And neither here nor there - I want to have babies with that cover.

6 comments:

lustyreader said...

Little bits of trivia that you learn randomly are so much more fun! I would never have picked up this book myself, but have to admit you intrigued me. If only to find out how the words "House Dick" ended up together in the title...?

iasa said...

That cover is rather fabulous.

Anonymous said...

Yeah! I love that cover, too.

--Maili

Tracy said...

The cover is very, very cool. And I love the name.

Barbara said...

Great cover. Wow, you learn something new everyday.

Rosie said...

You do know how to turn a phrase. One never knows what's behind the masks people wear...