You're not meant to judge a book by its cover, but that rule goes out the window with crime novels. Frequently the cover is the best part. It started with the pulp novels, which would put a lurid image with lots of cleavage and knives and looming death on the front in order to sell a cheap story. It worked. So much that the style has now been appropriated by 'proper' books. But not all crime novels have pulp covers. Some are modern and minimal, some solely text-based, but any good example needs a sense of intrigue and excitement.
Here's a gallery of some of the most spectacular covers in crime fiction, from the beautifully tacky to the just plain beautiful.
Blood On The Moon
Author: James Ellroy
Year: 2005
Halloween Party
Author: Agatha Christie
Year: 1969
Joyland
Author: Stephen King
Year: 2013
Mr. Peanut
Author: Adam Ross
Year: 2010
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Author: John Le Carre
Year: 1974
The Death Wish
Author: Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Year: 1949
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Year: 1902
No Country For Old Men
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Year: 2005
Strangers On A Train
Author: Patricia Highsmith
Year: 1950
The Mystic Art of Erasing All Signs of Death
Author: Charlie Huston
Year: 2009
The Hollow Man
Author: John Dickson Carr
Year: 1935
Farewell, My Lovely
Author: Raymond Chandler
Year: 1940
The Big Sleep
Author: Raymond Chandler
Year: 1939
Red Harvest
Author: Dashiell Hammett
Year: 1929
The Prisoner of Guantanamo
Author: Dan Fesperman
Year: 2006
Crime
Author: Alix Lambert
Year: 2008
The Twenty-Year Death
Author: Ariel S. Winter
Year: 2013
Zoo City
Author: Lauren Beukes
Year: 2011
The King of Methlehem
Author: Mark Lindquist
Year: 2008
In Cold Blood
Author: Truman Capote
Year: 1966
T As In Trapped
Author: Lawrence Treat
Year: 1947
Villain
Author: Shuichi Yoshida
Year: 2011
Case of the Deadly Kiss
Author: Milton K. Ozaki
Year: 1957
Sharp Objects
Author: Gillian Flynn
Year: 2007
Never Say No To A Killer
Author: Jonathan Gant
Year: 1956
The Murder
Author: John Steinbeck
Year: 1934
The Poisoned Chocolates Case
Author: Anthony Berkeley
Year: 1929
Pscyho
Author: Robert Bloch
Year: 1959
American Psycho
Author: Bret Easton Ellis
Year: 1991
The Case of the Haunted Husband
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner
Year: 1941
Sunset and Sawdust
Author: Joe R. Lansdale
Year: 2005
Brighton Rock
Author: Graham Greene
Year: 1938
The D.A. Calls It Murder
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner
Year: 1937
Child 44
Author: Tom Rob Smith
Year: 2008
The Thin Man
Author: Dashiell Hammett
Year: 1934
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