Double Take!

So I didn't really think about it at first, but something about the new SJ Bolton book is just a little familiar to me. Oh, yeah! It's the same freaking cover art as Jean Christophe Grange's Empire of Wolves. Two different publishing companies with publications two years apart, and they have the same cover.

You'd think someone would be watching for that kind of thing, wouldn't you?

Grange's hardcover release had very different art - it was dark with a sort of red shadow of a woman across the front. The UK edition had an actual photo of a woman on the cover - fitting since it's about a woman who has amnesia and discovers that she's had significant plastic surgery done on her face. Her husband is keeping things from her and she can't even trust herself. It's fantastic! The movie (starring Jean Reno *sigh* my "old man" crush - he's not really an old man, but he's WAY older than I am - is very much worth tracking down.

Bolton's book on the other hand is about strange ritualistic murders in the Shetland Islands. I've not had the chance to read it just yet, but am really looking forward to it, especially after everything that I've heard.

The UK cover art for Sacrifice was also significantly different from the carboned US cover. It featured a dark scene, with a gold ring on a sandy beach up close, and water in the background.

Seeing as how I am probably the biggest Grange fan this side of the Atlantic, my guess is that the designers working on Bolton's title were hoping no one would recognize the cover - either that or they obtained the photo themselves with no knowledge of Grange's book. Who knows? I'm probably one of the few folks who even owns both books, though I don't think it's a stretch for someone who likes overseas stuff to have found both books - hm, a UK and a French author who write graphic thrillers, nope not a stretch if you've actually HEARD of them.

My hope is that if I keep harping on Grange's books, people will search him out like I did. I am this close to buying French editions of his new stuff and attempting to use my limited skills to decipher them myself! In the meantime, if what I have heard is correct (and if the cover art can be trusted - haha) then maybe Bolton will be added to my list of must haves and then the two will have something else in common.