Another Look: Happy Valentine’s Day!

Warning: Artistic inspiration drawn from book titles may vary.



Left: The Case of the Lazy Lover, by Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket, 1952), with cover art by Clyde Ross. Right: The Case of the Lazy Lover, by Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket Cardinal, 1958); cover illustration by Mitchell Hooks.

Because I Needed a MacDonald Fix …

The Lethal Sex, edited by John D. MacDonald (Dell, 1959).
Cover illustration by Robert McGinnis.

Another Look: “The Deadly Pick-up”

Warning: Artistic inspiration drawn from book titles may vary.



Left: The Deadly Pick-up, by Milton K. Ozaki (Graphic, 1954); cover illustrator unknown. Right: The Deadly Pick-up, by Milton K. Ozaki (Berkley Diamond, 1960); cover art by Rudy Nappi.

Happy Birthday, Robert McGinnis!

Above: Revenge, by Jack Ehrlich (Dell, 1958). Below right: The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper, by John D. MacDonald (Fawcett Gold Medal, 1981), the 10th Travis McGee novel.

Not everybody lives to be 93 years old. But that’s the age renowned Ohio-born artist-illustrator Robert McGinnis will turn this coming Sunday, February 3. To celebrate this occasion, I’ve composed a small tribute to McGinnis for CrimeReads. You will find that here.

The piece is enhanced with almost 40 scans of covers McGinnis has painted over the last 60 years for crime, mystery, thriller, and suspense novels. Believe it or not, that’s a paltry selection, compared with this artist’s full output. As I explain in the article,

[McGinnis] has produced more than 1,000 unique paintings employed on American paperback book covers. His works are distinguished by their precise use of color, the artist’s preference for portraiture over depicting story scenes, and especially the lithe and luscious women who are so often the focal point of his canvases. Women whom Vanity Fair once described as “a mix of Greek goddess and man-eating Ursula Andress.”

I own several stacks of McGinnis-illustrated paperbacks, and my computer files contain scans of hundreds more. Choosing just over three dozen prime examples to help readers understand the range and distinction of McGinnis’ artistry was no elementary task, and I kept adding and subtracting until I decided I’d found the right combination.

Some of the book fronts I dropped (with regret) in my concluding round of cutting have been used to illustrate this post.

A handful of the scans I’ve employed in CrimeReads came from Art Scott, an erstwhile California chemist turned author, who co-wrote—with the painter himself—2014’s The Art of Robert E. McGinnis (Titan). As Scott told me during an interview I conducted with him at the time that gorgeous hardcover publication saw print, he’s a “compulsive collector” of McGinnis’ book covers. When I spoke with him five years ago, he estimated the number of those works in his collection at 1,088. More recently, he updated that count:

The number is now 1,101. Last entry is So Many Doors, the [Hard Case Crime release] by Oakley Hall—the [Robert] Maguire-McGinnis “collaboration.” I think I’m current with all books issued since the 1,088 number, but there’s always a chance I missed a book somewhere. There are four paperbacks—two Avon Gothics and two Dells—that are on my Desperately Needing Upgrade shortlist. Were there time and funds enough, I could chase foreign paperback editions forever, but I have to be content with occasionally getting on Google Images and similar sites to download interesting foreign covers—[which] reprint, and sometimes mangle, Bob’s original paintings.

I have done my best to not mangle any of the images used in today’s CrimeReads salute to one of the foremost American paperback illustrators. Click here to read it.

Left: Flush Times, by Warren Miller (Fawcett Crest, 1963); click here to see the original painting. Right: The Case of the Duplicate Daughter, by Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket, 1962).

Left: Daily Bread, by Ralph Moloney (Fawcett Crest, 1961). Right: No More Dying Then, by Ruth Rendell (Bantam, 1974). I, for one, did not remember that McGinnis had created any covers for Rendell’s novels; this is apparently the only one.

Left: No Place to Hide, by Charles Runyon (Fawcett Gold Medal, 1970). Right: The Left Leg, by “Alice Tilton,” aka Phoebe Atwood Taylor (Popular Library, 1968).

Left: Take a Murder, Darling, by Richard S. Prather (Fawcett Gold Medal, 1965). Right: Never Kill a Client, by “Brett Halliday,” aka Davis Dresser (Dell, 1963).

Left: Death Comes Early, by William R. Cox (Dell, 1961).
Right: W.H.O.R.E., by “Carter Brown,” aka Alan Geoffrey Yates (Signet, 1971).

Killer Covers at 10: “December 6”

A decade in business, 12 months’ worth of paperback fronts.



December 6, by Martin Cruz Smith (Simon & Schuster, 2002). Jacket design by Jackie Seow.

Killer Covers at 10: “November Reef”

A decade in business, 12 months’ worth of paperback fronts.



November Reef, by Robin Maugham (Monarch, 1964). As The New York Times explained in its obituary of this British author, Robert Cecil Romer Maugham, 2nd Viscount Maugham of Hartfield (1916-1981) “was the nephew of the novelist and short-story writer [W.] Somerset Maugham, and the oldest son of the first Viscount Maugham, a former Lord High Chancellor.”
Cover illustration by Harry Schaare.

Killer Covers at 10: “Wait, Son, October Is Near”

A decade in business, 12 months’ worth of paperback fronts.



Wait, Son, October Is Near, by John Bell Clayton (Bantam, 1954). Cover illustration by Charles Binger.

Killer Covers at 10: “The Deadly September”

A decade in business, 12 months’ worth of paperback fronts.



The Deadly September, by “Karl Kramer,” aka Edward A. Morris (Monarch, 1960). Cover illustration by Robert Maguire.

Killer Covers at 10: “August Heat”

A decade in business, 12 months’ worth of paperback fronts.



August Heat, by Roger Allen (Midwood, 1962). Illustrator unidentified, though some sources credit this cover art to Robert Maguire. The back cover of August Heat can be seen here, while the same artwork, appearing on a later book—Lester Lake’s A Tender Bed (All Star, 1967)—is available here.

Killer Covers at 10: “Trouble in July”

A decade in business, 12 months’ worth of paperback fronts.



Above: Trouble in July, by Erskine Caldwell (Signet, 1957); cover art by James Avati. Below: Trouble in July, by Erskine Caldwell (Pan, 1960), with an illustration by Hans Helweg.

Killer Covers at 10: “A June of Ordinary Murders”

A decade in business, 12 months’ worth of paperback fronts.



A June of Ordinary Murders, by Conor Brady (Minotaur, 2012). Jacket design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein.

Killer Covers at 10: “Very Cold for May”

A decade in business, 12 months’ worth of paperback fronts.



Very Cold for May, by William P. McGivern (Pocket, 1951). Cover illustration by Clark Hulings, who painted the front for at least one other paperback edition of a McGivern crime novel.

READ MORE: “Very Cold for May (1950), by William P. McGivern,”
by Kate Jackson (Cross-Examining Crime).

Killer Covers at 10: “The April Robin Murders”

A decade in business, 12 months’ worth of paperback fronts.



The April Robin Murders, by Craig Rice and Ed McBain (Dell, 1959). As blogger Sergio Angelini explained a few years ago in Tipping My Fedora, this was “the final novel by Craig Rice”—aka Georgiana Ann Randolph Craig—“that was left unfinished at her death [in August 1957] and ultimately completed by Evan Hunter under his ‘Ed McBain’ alias.” Cover illustration by Robert McGinnis, whose original artwork can be seen here.

Click here to enjoy a different paperback cover for The April Robin Murders, painted by Ron Lesser.

Killer Covers at 10: “Dark Moon of March”

A decade in business, 12 months’ worth of paperback fronts.



Dark Moon of March, by Emmett Gowan (Dell, 1952).
Cover illustration by Victor Kalin.

Killer Covers at 10: “February Hill”

A decade in business, 12 months’ worth of paperback fronts.



Above: February Hill, by Victoria Lincoln (Popular Library, 1967), with cover art by Mitchell Hooks. Below: February Hill, by Victoria Lincoln (Bantam, 1947), featuring cover art by Van Kaufman.

Killer Covers at 10: “The Two Faces of January”

A decade in business, 12 months’ worth of paperback fronts.



The Two Faces of January, by Patricia Highsmith (Pan, 1964). Cover illustration by Edward Mortelmans.

Killer Covers at 10: A Calendar of Crime

Calendar of Crime, by Ellery Queen (Pocket, 1953).
Cover illustration by Richard M. Powers.

I know I didn’t plan ahead of time that the debut of my main blog, The Rap Sheet, back in May 2006, should have taken place on Arthur Conan Doyle’s birthday; that was simply a fortunate happenstance. I don’t recall now whether I intended the launch of Killer Covers to occur on what would have been Edgar Allan Poe’s 200th birthday—January 19, 2009—though I may have done, as I commented on that anniversary in The Rap Sheet.

Regardless, the point is that as of today, I have been writing and editing Killer Covers for a full 10 years.

This blog has grown and changed considerably over the last decade, as I’ve adjusted my expectations for it. In the early days, I penned fewer posts, and those I did turn out were mostly longer contributions that employed a single vintage book as the jumping-off point to discuss the more extensive work of an individual author or cover artist. (See, for instance, this write-up about Harry Olesker’s Now, Will You Try for Murder?; or this one concerning Frank Kane’s once-popular Johnny Liddell novels; or this other piece having to do with Michael Avallone’s The Voodoo Murders, a 1957 paperback that featured artwork by Mitchell Hooks.) Over the last couple of years, my objective has been to increase the number of posts appearing here by combining quick-hit subjects (such as those in my “Two-fer Tuesdays” and “Book Fixes” series) with themed strings of entries (among them the recent “Twelve Dames of Christmas” lineup) and more extensive tributes to specific artists (my focuses on the artistry of Robert Stanley and Ron Lesser last year having been prime examples of such projects). I don’t think I have yet figured out the ideal mix, one that keeps this page lively without overly taxing my energies; but achieving that goal is likely to maintain my interest for years to come.

To commemorate Killer Covers’ ninth birthday in January 2018, I put together a set of nine attention-grabbing paperback façades that had been added to my computer files during the previous 365 days. This time around, I’m going to celebrate with a year’s worth of books bearing titles that include the names of months—our own “calendar of crime,” if you will. We’ll commence the rollout tomorrow with a January title, and move on from there, one book per day, through all 12 months of the now 437-year-old Gregorian calendar. Most of the covers to be featured have been chosen already, but I’m still looking for stand-out old fronts to represent November and December. If anyone has suggestions, please let me know via e-mail.

So here’s to the coming year of Killer Covers. Let’s hope it meets—nay, exceeds—out hopes for its continuing development.

READ MORE: “‘The Purloined Letter’—Mystery Solved, by Susan Amper (Criminal Element); “A Brief and Incomplete Survey of Edgar Allan Poes in Pop Culture,” by Emily Temple (Literary Hub); “You Don’t Know Poe: 10 Weird Things About Edgar Allan Poe,” by Matthew Mercie (Tor.com).

Font and Center

I, for one, hadn’t noticed that “an approachable-witchy 1938 typeface,” familiar from the classic Nancy Drew mysteries, has been making a comeback on book fronts. Vox has the story here.

Because I Needed a Greene Fix …

Orient Express, by Graham Greene (Bantam, 1955). This novel, frequently referred to as “Greene’s first true success,” was originally published in Britain in 1932 as Stamboul Train, but was subsequently retitled for its release in America.
Illustration by George Gross.

Another Look: “The Case of the Drowning Duck”

Warning: Artistic inspiration drawn from book titles may vary.



Left: The Case of the Drowning Duck, by Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket, 1949); cover art by Louis Glanzman. Right: The Case of the Drowning Duck, by Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket, 1950); cover illustration by Frank McCarthy.