TRASHY TUESDAY: TROPICAL DEATHPACT By NICK CARTER (Bob Stokesberry) (Star, 1982)

The long running Nick Carter-Killmaster series of men’s adventure books, enjoyed many covers of varying quality over its life, including some nice ones by George Gross, but were not well served by the British Mayflower and Star photographic covers (also see my earlier post on The Golden Serpent:
https://murdermayhemandlongdogs.com/trashy-tuesday-the-golden-serpent-by-nick-carter-manning-lee-stokes-mayflower-1974/ )

Tropical Deathpact was first released in the US in 1979 and later in Britain in 1982 by Star books. The story finds Nick Carter in Central America in the midst of a three-way civil war. It is typical Carter story, with the resilient hero playing off the various sides and bedding at least three women (none of whom resemble the woman on the cover of the book).

The cover is dreadful and has that hastily conceived feel typical of the Mayflower and Star covers. The model is not a good ethnic representative of the women in the book and the picture does not resemble anything from the story. The silver jumpsuit is a bizarre outfit choice for a book about a Central American revolution and seems to be left over from the earlier photo shoot (see below) for Trouble In Paradise (1980) or maybe a Moonraker extra!. Although possibly some publishing executive thought that silver jumpsuits were all the rage among Central American revolutionaries in the early 1980s! It certainly does not seem to feature in the book.

The plastic hairpins also seem a weird choice. But the strangest part of the cover is the unfortunately positioned Star logo! Surely someone on the design team would have questioned the positioning of it, but maybe not.

In all, another poor photographic cover that has not aged well!

The similar cover for Trouble In Paradise (1980)(not a good copy)