Mystery publishers have long adhered to the well-known adage – and I’m not talking about “Crime Doesn’t Pay! here” The concept that sex sells applies to books as well as anything else. This is all well and good; in fact, it leans right into the world of pulp fiction where the best of hard-boiled detectives are chasing down dames when they’re not clobbering or being clobbered. 

This all makes a certain sense when you’re dealing with these mugs. But explain this 1949 Bantam cover:

The biggest draw for classic crime lovers – Sherlock Holmes himself – is reduced to text (at least the typeface is as big as the title). Meanwhile . . . who is this woman? Where’s the hound who graced so many covers in the earlier part of the century?

My favorite author Agatha Christie wasn’t immune from this treatment. The early Dell covers loved to titillate:

There were three servants working for the victim. Certainly this is not “Old Francoise” who has caught M. Poirot’s eye! It must be one of the sisters, Denise or Leonie. One wonders how the late M. Renaud could have been bothered canoodling with Mme. Daubreuil down the road!

And don’t think the British were immune to this tendency. Check out Linnet Doyle’s decolletage in this 1951 Avon cover of Death on the Nile:

After reading Agatha Christie pretty voraciously for four years, I decided to branch out to other writers. I chose Ellery Queen, and the first novel I got my hands on was The Greek Coffin Mystery. This 1932 classic begins with a funeral, and early covers lean into that imagery: 

This is the cover that Signet slapped on the copy I bought:

It certainly gives off a different vibe from the covers above – but maybe not so different from the one that Pocket Books used in 1960:

Let me make it clear: I did not buy The Greek Coffin Mystery because there was an attractive woman boldly standing on the cover. It was my only option at the bookstore, and I liked the book’s description on the back cover and the inclusion of a cast of suspects, a couple of diagrams, and a Challenge to the Reader. But then I have never represented the average American male reader! And as my collection of Ellery Queen books grew, so did the bevy of beauties: 

I can excuse the girl on the cover of The Egyptian Cross Mystery because a nudist colony does figure into the plot. The Four of Hearts hinges on two love affairs, and it is set in Hollywood where anything goes! I know there’s a naked man in The Spanish Cape Mystery, but instead we have a mysterious pirate girl! There was an old woman in There Was an Old Woman, but I see neither hide nor hair of her here. And the woman on the cover of The Last Woman in His Life is misleading in the extreme – but then this whole cover series is a lesson in false advertising. 

Do you know which classic mystery author got the concept and made things easy for publishers? Erle Stanley Gardner, that’s who! Of course, the man had been writing for pulp magazines for years before he began writing various series of delectable novels. Just look at some of the titles in the Cool & Lam series, all of which sound like late night features on Skinemax: 

Is it getting hot in here? Maybe it’s too early to lay on the assemblage of dames who featured in the Perry Mason titles, all those cautious coquette, sulky girls, vagabond virgins, negligent nymphs, daring divorcees, lonely heiresses, half-wakened wives, fugitive nurses, long-legged models and amorous aunts! And they all had covers to match!

Okay, all you waylaid wolves, cut out the whistling and settle down. This whole shemozzle has merely been an excuse for me to read more Perry Mason. We’re going to keep it simple: I’ve selected three books to share with you over the next few weeks that make up a sort of Charlie’s Angels for the Great Attorney. One blonde. One brunette. One redhead. All first reads for me, and I’ll be looking for the most diverting mystery amongst them. 

What will you be looking for?