Taking the Fifth

Don’t misunderstand that headline: This piece isn’t going to be about more inner-circle aides to Chris Christie searching for legal means to save themselves from the New Jersey governor’s worsening scandals. Instead, it’s about Killer Covers’ fifth anniversary. Yes, I began posting on this page on January 19, 2009, which also happened to be Edgar Allan Poe’s 200th birthday. (That launch date seemed a nice match with the fact that my other big blog, The Rap Sheet, celebrates its birthday on the same day as Arthur Conan Doyle.)

Things have been rather up and down here ever since, as I have sought to find a time and effort balance between blogging in The Rap Sheet, keeping up my Mysteries and Thrillers column for Kirkus Reviews, and fulfilling other freelance-writing obligations. However, the debut last August of Killer Covers’ “Two-fer Tuesday” series--highlighting vintage “book covers that just seem to go together”--has added greater regularity to the blog’s updatings. And I’ve given up trying to make every post a comprehensive, “important” look back at some renowned artist/illustrator’s history and talents; I’m now more content with dropping articles of various lengths onto this page (though I still hope to pen longer retrospectives on the work of such talents as Walter Popp, George Ziel, and Paul Rader).

To celebrate five years of Killer Covers, I shall spend the coming business week posting one book front per day that I discovered during the last year. Each by a different artist. Each decorating a work that I would eventually like for my own collection. This will be a purely biased selection, made up of covers that caught my eye. You’ll have to let me know if they give you pleasure, as well.