Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Ugly James Hadley Chase cover

James Hadley Chase's second novel was called "The Dead Stay Dumb" and it was published in 1939. For some reason, the first Finnish edition came only in 1994 - with this cover. Pretty striking, huh?

The Finnish title means "The Dead Don't Speak". It's an ugly novel, but I don't really know if it's any good. It's obvious Chase couldn't plot at all, but he makes his people down-right nasty. Even without any sensible reason, though.


roberto said...

i don´t know if it is ugly... maybe a little kistch (well, a big kistch) but that is why covers are for ?=)

and i agree with you: James hadley Chase is a bore

Juri said...

Well, maybe "ugly" is a wrong word. "Unstylish"? "Trashy"?

Kitsch, as I understand, is about the low-brow trying to be high-brow, for example a Baroque statue made of pink plastic. (Well, actually that sounds like some postmodern artist, like Jeff Koons.)