Without quite realising it, I have found myself collecting books written by Henry Kane.  The trouble is, I don’t like Henry Kane books.

Henry Kane is perhaps best known for his Pete Chambers series of crime novels.  Chambers is a typical hard-boiled, gun-toting, woman-chasing, New York private eye.  Not really my cup of tea.

Kane’s writing career was most prolific during the 1950s and ‘60s, and one of his publishers in the UK was T. V. Boardman.  And working for Boardman during this period was the illustrator Denis McLoughlin.

Now, I do like Denis McLoughlin.  As an artist of book dust wrappers, his illustrations would be hard to beat.  And, of all his excellent designs that he produced across the entire series of Boardman Bloodhound hardbacks, I find the images he produced for Henry Kane’s novels to be amongst the most unified and distinctive and visually striking.

Going entirely against the established wisdom of the well-known mantra, I am judging a book purely by its cover.

So, on my bookcase, there is a growing array of Henry Kane spines.  I enjoy looking at them even if I don’t enjoy reading them.  But this leaves me with a quandary.

Books as art?  It’s not what they are meant for, is it?  But, when there are so many books in the world that I can’t possibly read all the ones that I want to, shouldn’t the books that I don’t want to read at least look pretty?

© Fergus Longfellow

Fergus Longfellow wonders if he is a bit shallow.