The Paperback Show Podcast

Dan J. Marlowe is a master crime novelist who deserves to be part of the pantheon of crime writers like Jim Thompson, Richard Stark (aka Donald Westlake), and Patricia Highsmith. Why has he been forgotten? Probably because he wrote his major crime novels for a paperback publisher (Gold Medal) and never had a hardback publisher. Also, there's never been a major motion picture or tv series made from one of his books. It's primarily because readers don't know about him and there have been few reprints of his best novels.  Episode 9 of the Paperback Show introduces listeners (and hopefully readers) to this compelling novelist whose life reflected his novels (minus the killing). We offer a short biography of Dan J. Marlowe and then a wide-ranging discussion of his masterpiece, The Name of the Game is Death (date) with crime novelist, graphic novelist, and generally cool guy, Duane Swierczynski . Thank you, Duane, for sharing your time with me (and our podcast audience).  Author...

This is a small gallery of paperback covers of Dan J. Marlowe paperbacks. Most are from my own collection, but some were taken from a Flickr collection by Steve and a paperback Drake series collection at spyguysandgals.com . The early Gold Medal covers are the best. The reprint covers were much less interesting. Black Lizard did a nice job with their pulp covers although they all tend to look the same. Early Avon covers of Marlowe's Johnny Killain are quite nice but are much like the covers of other authors they were publishing at the time (the late 1940s).  Untitled Document Gold Medal s1184 (1962) Gold Medal revised (1973) Black Lizard (1988) Italian paperback (?) Gold Medal (1969) Black Lizard (1988) Digit Books (?) Avon (?) Gold Medal (1974) ...