We’ve Got It Covered

It’s no secret that J. Kingston Pierce, January Magazine’s senior editor, as well as primary perpetrator of The Rap Sheet, has a thing for covers.

Not long after we launched The Rap Sheet as a standalone publication back into 2006, Pierce began his campaign of holding copycat covers up to the light. All of those articles are vastly entertaining, and are collected here.

In 2007, it seemed somewhat natural when this passion for all things coverlicious led to Pierce collecting the best of the covers he’d encountered during the year and allowing readers to add in their two cents. Yesterday on The Rap Sheet, Pierce unveiled the covers he figures are this year’s best from the world of crime fiction:

Several of us have been keeping track of the artwork that has graced this genre’s book jackets over the last 12 months, and we have finally winnowed down (from an original set of some three dozen candidates) what we believe are the 12 most distinguished covers produced in 2008. Undoubtedly, there will be readers who disagree with our selections, and say that other choices should have been made. Indeed, those of us who put this list together pushed our individual sets of contenders, and in the end none of us got everything he or she wanted. A few nominees were especially hard to set aside, but in the end, we arrived at a rundown of book jackets that work well in terms of artwork, typography, and message.

If you’d like have a peek and add your own vote, you may do so here.