Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Jukka's cover for Hard Case Crime found a user


Some months ago I wrote about my friend Jukka Murtosaari's attempt to break through in the US and send cover illustrations to Hard Case Crime's Charles Ardai. The illos were turned down, but now one of them has been published.

The eye-patch lady now illustrates Helena Numminen's short story collection Murhaavasti/Murderingly that had its launch party earlier today. The publisher is Turbator for whom Jukka has done lots of covers and for which I've edited some anthologies and collections. Helena's book collects 14 bitter and hard-hitting crime stories no ordinary publisher would touch. Two of the stories were originally published in my crime fiction fanzine, Isku, namely "Molotovin cocktail" (which is very urgent in its depiction of hospitalized old women) and "Vekan pedissä". Helena seems to have rewritten the ending of the latter. Highly recommended.

There were also two other books launched today: publisher Harri Kumpulainen's own collection of absurdist short-shorts and composer Matti Rag Paananen's collection of poetry that he wrote while in Africa. Both have already been reviewed here.

Jukka still has a great cover available - anyone? (Check the link to my earlier post.)

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