Six And A Half Deadly Sins

Last year I started work on a new series of books in the US, the new covers for the Colin Cotterill collection of strange, wonderful and macabre stories about a 70-year-old coroner called Dr Siri Palboun, set in Laos. And yes - having read a couple, they are as strange as they sound!

Nailing down the look of a series always takes quite a bit of work, and this one was particularly tricky given the subject matter and the precedent of the author's popularity. It was also the hardcover - I've since designed the rest of the paperback covers.

The finished cover is below, and rather than talk my way through this one (my usual method!), watch the cover evolve from early zombie-filled ideas into a typographic/ink-sloshy solution! This one doesn't 'look like me'...know what I mean? I do like a surprise result.

Six And A Half Deadly Sins is out on May 19th this year in the US, and is to be followed by 8 more books in paperback, with titles like 'The Woman Who Wouldn't Die'! Excellent.

 Close-up of the repeat pattern intended for the endpapers - not used in the end: