Got it Covered

I love old book covers, in fact one of the big pleasures of my Ngaio Marsh Challenge has been tracking down the titles in second hand book stores and checking out the cover art. Some are twee, some are average and some fantastic. The worst ones are the BBC TV tie in covers with boring photographs of equally boring looking actors...yawn.

When I was looking through the Carnival of the Criminal Minds archives the other day I found a reference to this blog called Judge a Book by its Cover, and in particular the Carnival host, The Rap Sheet pointed us to this post on Robert Kyle's Kill Now, Pay Later. It's a pearler, and you have to read the back cover blurb. Talk about audacious!




I know Donald Kerr at the Otago University Library Special Collections purchased a large collection of pulp fiction a few years back. I must go visit and have a giggle at the titles and the covers. I believe the Design School students have a great time with them.

Here's a few covers of the Ngaio Marsh titles I've recently acquired:

Artists in Crime (1967 ed) The Fontana covers were edgy and colourful.





















Death in Ecstasy (1968 ed) Another edgy Fontana. (They haven't acknowledged the artist though)





















Vintage Murder (1977 ed) This later Fontana cover by Justin Todd is more conservative, but still intriguing.





















And yes, I do have two copies of some of her books because I liked the different cover versions. Sometimes a girl just can't be forced to choose.