The Cover Story: Crime Fiction Now and Then and Now Again

Let’s talk crime novel covers. My, how they’ve changed over the years. Don’t believe me? Let’s go back to the (almost) beginning (we’ll skip over Sherlock Holmes who-dun-its for this article). The that, we need to visit the pulp mags. 

 The Pulp Era

 The covers of the classic pulp era stand alone as works of “cheap,” “vulgar,” and “violent” art — just to mention some of the adjectives thrown at them. But works of art they remain. They knew how to attract a reader with scenes of danger and drama (and more than a little sexual titillation, of course). 

 In fact, because of the patriarchal views (some might say misogynistic) of the time, it was hard to find covers that didn’t have some helpless woman in various states of either torture or undress. However, even when they didn’t have such covers, the images were always high points of action (maybe or maybe not related to one of the stories between the covers) or danger or violence. 

 Suspense was the key question when you saw one of these covers. Will the hero save the day? Will the beautiful dame get shishkabobbed? 

 These covers screamed and begged you to drop a few cents and find out. And they did it very, very well. 

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