* Every now and then I run across a glamour or celebrity shot that really cries out that it ought to be on the cover of a racy detective novel. One evening I got to thinking: "Well, OK, why can't they be?" So I started designing my own fake detective novel covers. It turned out to be a fun hobby.
For the present, all these covers are from mysteries by "Jason S. Rodham". The first row includes:
The second row includes:
The hardest part is figuring out the fake titles, heroes, and authors, and coming up with sensationalistic "teaser" text. In most cases, the picture suggests the story. It's much like the way in the old days of pulp magazines the publishers would contract for a set of four cover paintings and then have authors write stories around them.
I envision Jack Thorne as a tough-guy detective who does occasional international work for clients, with some science-fiction elements thrown into the story line. Incidentally, I'm really a science-fiction and fantasy fan; I don't often read mysteries, I just like the covers. Fans of Warren Ellis's PLANETARY comic series might get a heavy dose of the wilder elements of the Jack Thorne stories.
Who knows? Maybe someone will try to hunt down these mysteries as if they really existed. Maybe someone will even try to write them. Incidentally, although the photos themselves belong to other folks, all the story concepts and characters here are in the public domain, use them if you like, I won't say boo about it.
