I fell in love with ACE Doubles at an early age in the Sixties. As I walked to school when I was 12 years old, I passed a local drug store with a prominently displayed spinner rack (remember them?) with plenty of paperbacks. But the ones that seduced me were ACE Doubles with their cool double covers in tête-bêche format. I bought Science Fiction ACE Doubles in those early days, but sometime in my late teens I broadened my buying to include ACE Doubles featuring mysteries and Westerns. I ended up donated dozens of ACE Doubles to the Special Collections at the State University at Buffalo as part of the 30,000 volume George Kelley Paperback and Pulp Fiction Collection.
Stark House just published THREE ACES, A Trio of ACE Books with a wonderful Introduction by Richard Krauss, editor and publisher of The Digest Enthusiast. Richard Krauss’s informative and enlightening description of ACE Doubles and Singles from that era highlights the editorial strategy and the changing public tastes of that time. Richard was kind enough to invite me to add some of my fond memories of ACE Doubles and they’re included in the Introduction, too!
The Gilded Hideaway (ACE Single S-107) by Peter Twist (a pseudonym of C. P. Hewitt) was published in 1955. Robert West has success and a wife and friends, but none of that brings him happiness. So West steals $100,000 and flees to Mexico to start a new Life. But West learns money doesn’t solve all problems especially when it comes to the beautiful woman named Mercedes. GRADE: B
In at the Kill by Emmett McDowell (aka, Robert Emmett McDowell) was half of ACE Double D-445 (the other half was McDowell’s Bloodline to Murder), published in 1960. In at the Kill concerns a scheme to locate some rare stamps, but leads to more valuable photos and blackmail. GRADE: B+
Heat Lightning (ACE Single S-74) by Wilene Shaw (pseudonym of Virgina M. Harrison), published in 1954, delivers a hot love triangle in the Kentucky hills. Holly Reed, while attracted to local bootlegger Brandy Elliot, finds herself drawn to a stranger in town: city-bred Larry Carter. Carter turns out to be a man of mystery…and violence. GRADE: A-
If you have three aces, you’re likely to win. Stark House’s Three Aces omnibus is a winner for sure! Don’t miss this one!
This looks really interesting. I also bought a lot of ACE Doubles (and singles) but mine were restricted to SF, probably because SF was just about all I was reading during my period of ACE mania. Also, the ACE SF doubles tended to feature well known writers, but the others were mostly by writers I’d never heard of. Anyway, this is a definite purchase.
Michael, I started out as you did buying ACE Doubles in the Science Fiction genre, but later I branched out. You’ll enjoy these three stories and Richard Krauss’s excellent Introduction!
It seems likely to me that those spinner racks were at several stores in my neighborhood but I never once spun them. Books came from the library in my house and not at all to my family members.
Patti, my parents took me and my siblings to the local Public Library as soon as we could read. But Libraries at that time didn’t buy ACE Doubles (or any paperbacks for that matter) so if I wanted those cool SF covers, I had to buy them. Fortunately by the time I was 12 years old, I was mowing lawns and that money went to book buying.
I was relatively lucky in the early ’70s to find all kinds of interesting stuff at the school and particularly the Enfield Public Library, including years-old AHMMs on the spinner racks in the kids’ section for no Good reason (I didn’t complain), and no one stopping me from traipsing over to the adult section even when I was 9yo (and perhaps looked 12, on a mature day). Though they were worried enough about such things to require my mother’s permission to take out sex ed books, which she was amused to give.
But the original Ace Doubles in the short format were long gone, and even the latter-day “standard-sized” mass-market pbs of the latter ’60s into the earliest ’70s were gone by the time I was buying books…
I’m very glad Stark House is trying this out, and I hope even on their scale this kind of gamble cashes in for them…these are Not the first names/titles most perusers of vintage novels would think of…you guys were thinking (correctly) that Wilma Shore is now obscure…
Todd, STARK HOUSE has many projects that deserve reader support and reprinting ACE Double and Single novels is a noble effort!
The Ace Double mysteries were fairly easy to find second-hand in the early ’70s, when I was scouring junk stores and used-book stores for old Gold Medals. I was under the (mis?)conception that they were inferior to the hardboiled stuff from GM and Pocket Books. I think the only one I ever bought was Peter Rabe’s CUT OF THE WHIP, since it was part of Rabe’s Daniel Port series otherwise published by GM. My friend Bill Davis, a Robert Bloch fan, owned the Ace Double of SHOOTING STAR and TERROR IN THE NIGHT, and the Ace standalone THE WILL TO KILL.
Fred, I found ACE Books in general varied in quality. They published Robert Bloch and Peter Rabe…and a lot of unknown writers. As you say, ACE Doubles in the mystery category were common in the 1970s. Now, they’re hard to find unless you want to pay a pretty penny on the Internet.
Sounds good. I think I had that Emmett McDowell double Ace book. I never collected stamps but I enjoyed reading books about it, like Judson Philips/Hugh Pentecost’s CANCELLED IN RED.
Jeff, like you I’m fascinated by other collectors–of stamps, rare paintings, coins, etc.–so the premise is enticing!
I temember those drug store paperback racks fondly. I made my first book purchase (Athur C. Clarke’s “Islands in the Sky”) from one and very soon was doing all the household chores I could to get allowance money to buy more. I used to haunt the racks of our local drug store and supermarket for new books. As I recall those racks seemed to disappear by the end of the seventies but by then I was hitting the local book stores.
I don’t recall seeing any ACE titles on the drug store racks but I recall seeing a few in the bookstores. I was always a sucker for slick graphics (usually found on the Ballantine titles) and thought the ACE stuff looked a little iffy by comparison. The weird twofers that you had to flip over to read the second novel put me off for some reason. I find them more charming (though no less baffling) now.
Byron, you’re right about those spinner racks disappearing in the 1970s, but I have fond memories of them still! Like you, I loved the covers on Ballantine books. But the funky ACE Doubles won me over early in the 1960s: two cool covers for the price of one! Irresistible!
Two front covers could mean, publishers who did them hoped, two facings in the racks. Good question how often their hopes were fulfilled.
Todd, the two cover strategy on ACE Doubles worked on me! I bought them as soon as they showed up on that spinner rack!
Fond memories again!
I just had to look and found several Ace Doubles still with the price ticket from the London store “Dark they were and Golden eyed” which was the leader in the early 70s but closed after the owner went into drugs.
In those days (1970 – 1990) you could find many ACE and also later DAW books second hand in London, really nice.
Wolf, ACE Books was acquired by other publisher and its former editor Donald A. Wollheim formed his own publishing company, DAW Books. While ACE Books used the two-cover concept to attract readers, DAW books featured that lovely golden spine and great cover artwork to help sell its books.
George, I know that of course and I met Wollheim’s daughter and her husband who took over DAW’s management at the Brighton Eastercon in 1984. I was invited to a room party in the con hotel by a common friend from the Forbidden Planet SF store – and we had some of those 144 cans of German beer that I had brought in my little camping van.
Yes, 50 liters of beer you could bring to England tax free …
Those were the days!
Wolf, those were the days indeed! 50 liters of beer brings a lot of cheer!
I rank ACE pbs, somewhere behind Gold Medal and Dell First Editions, with Lion hovering uncertainly somewhere in the mix.
Dan, I agree with your paperback categorizations. I love them all!