A really evocative book cover

The first impression made by a book is the cover, and I still can’t understand why more effort does not go into the selection of some of them.

The plethora of recent publicity stickers with various allusions to Stieg Larsson, or The Killing, or Kurt Wallander, or Kenneth Branagh, or Sarah Lund’s jumper, show how little thought goes into the marketing of these books. Let’s just jump on the Nordic bandwagon seems to be the motto!

It is a real pleasure to receive a book in the post with a cover that is both evocative and relevant to the contents. This is the case with Aly Monroe’s new Peter Cotton espionage story Icelight [a positive review to follow in a few days] set during the very cold winter of 1947. [a freeze up that was repeated in 1963]

For those of us who experienced the bleak freezing fogs that affected London during the 1950s and 1960s the cover is spot on for bringing back less than fond memories of outside facilities, paraffin heaters, and horrible fish paste sandwiches served in freezing cold houses. But the clever photo is also enhanced by the subtitle below Icelight;

                              So who really won the war?

This was the question my parents’ generation, who had suffered so much through two world wars, must have asked themselves every day during those bleak years.