Yeah, I heard A. C. Doyle was the real deal. His hero is a coke
addict, right? And is assisted by an ex-combat vet from Afghanistan?
What a concept! :-)
On 12/3/09, Kevin Burton Smith <kvnsmith@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> Eric wrote:
>
>> Maybe they (Harlequin) were marketing to people who buy books because of
>> the covers. Don't laugh. They are out there. Sad but true.
>
> Sheesh. You'll hurt Charles' feelings. And expose all of HardCase Crime's
> carefully guarded business secrets.
>
> But I'll bet there's more than one person on this list who's bought a book
> simply because of the cover. I know I have.
>
> Still, the truth is, a lot of those great pulp cover artists did great
> covers for lousy books and stories. Anyone who thinks the pulps and the
> subsequent pulp fiction paperbacks were pure literary gold has never tried
> to read anything beyond the A list -- even in their absolute prime, BLACK
> MASK, DIME DETECTIVE, Gold Medal et al all published a lot of turkeys --
> horrid, inept filler that not even the charms of nostalgia can save. The
> racist, misogynist, homophobic crap and general ignorance were the least of
> their problems. The only saving grace of a lot of these books and stories
> was their covers.
>
> That HardCaseCrime has managed such a high score of great covers AND great
> reads is a testament to their vision and editorial true grit. Like, this new
> guy they're touting, A.C. Doyle guy, is going places.
>
> Mark my words.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 03 Dec 2009 EST