Decibels of dirty socks…

But first…
Dulltown, UK: Today’s carefully selected adjectives are: cockled, discal, manifold, suffruticose, noematical, doited, and wanwordy.
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Yes, it was everywhere, she dared not relax her vigilance…
No, no, it’s alright, it’s just another junk shop 1960s cheap pulp sci-fi/supernatural paperback novel, a Badger Book from my modest collection. As you see this one is by John E. Muller, one of the many pseudonyms of Robert Lionel Fanthorpe who wrote most of the Badger SF and spooky output – he managed one every couple of weeks apparently.
Shall we flip the book over and see what the blurb on the back cover has to tell us?
The most gripping fear lies within the human mind. Lana Davis was a normal, healthy, sane young woman to all outward appearances, but the Unknown was laying siege to her mind. By day her work kept the worst of the terror at bay , but at night it returned. Time passed and Fear grew greater… Fear was embodied in a mysterious effigy which stood beside her bed… Fear lurked in a weird voice on the telephone…
Me, if I found myself in Lana’s position, I would have binned my bedside effigy as soon as it started playing up, but then we wouldn’t have had this fine novel, would we?
It’s a very nice cover painting isn’t it? Look, it’s signed there on the right – it’s the usual Badger Book artist Henry Fox – oh I do like his work!
It is strange, it’s weird, and it certainly is eerie. Let’s see what’s going on here:
This wide-eyed parted-lips lady is obviously our lovely Lana, look at her fabulous spooky hair, no wonder she’s troubled by spirits with hair like that! Lot’s girls now have green streaked hair. I like it, it looks very cool; so you see Lana was well ahead of her time having it back in the 1960s.
Now then, the chap on the right, pondering on something and fiddling with his medallion, he must be the spirit from the bedside effigy – doesn’t he look like the singer out of Aerosmith? Oh, see how his hair blends into Lana’s – that’s rather clever; Mr Fox is obviously suggesting that the two of them are folically locked together in space and time – and also that they must have to share the same hairdresser – no wonder Lana’s troubled! By the way, I do like the spiky red radiation emanating from bad guy’s head – oh, and look at the way Lana is clutching her fingers, almost in prayer – that is most effective…
Let me quickly dip into these fragile yellowing pages and find some examples of the writing style for you dear reader:
Lana winced with pain as the statuette was forced brutally out of her hand. Her fingers were numb where the hooded thug had wrenched them apart, and there was a dull, throbbing ache in her wrist. The masked creature held up the statuette as a returned Olympic gold medallist would hold up a precious trophy.
And…
With the sonorous tones of the alarm bell booming and resounding until the whole Grange seemed filled with the noise, a suitcase crammed with decibels of dirty socks, a portmanteau packed and pressed down with cacophonous pyjamas, it took Lana some time to unfasten the door…
And…
I wonder if he’s one of those people who conjure up impressions to go with names, thought Lana. I wonder what sort of impression I conjure up? She looked at her own neat, curvaceous, feminine acceptability in the small mirror on the front of the sideboard, and smiled at it…

By the way, all Badger Books have this ‘lucky Piskey’ advert page in them too – I thought that you might be interested in seeing it: