Book Review: True Crime Detective Magazines

True covers with plenty of dames

A wonderful wrap-up of this very down market publishing phenomenon whose main title, True Detective, was selling two million copies monthly in the late thirties. Not bad sales considering that it was competing against several dozen imitators on the newsstands. After the Second World War sales of the genre slowly declined decade after decade until the mid-nineties when the remaining eleven titles folded.

The 336 pages basically present the decades (from the twenties to the nineties) with hundreds of color covers and a nice touch I thought, quite a few inside spreads. Another title that has plenty of inside spreads and covers is 'Cyanide and Sin: Visualizing Crime in 50s America'. The covers relied on paintings right up the sixties, so much better to exaggerate the sexuality of the distressed dame caught up in some criminal deviance. Contrived studio photos took over from art and all the while over-the-top cover lines promised far more than was inside: True Detective, February 1976 main cover was 14 VICTIMS FOR THE SEX-MAD 'GORILLA MAN!' or True Police Cases, June 1968: SIN, SEX and SADISM in a MALE-FEMALE JAIL!

As well as all the covers there are some interesting chapters about the writers, cover artists and a spread about the leading publishers and their titles. The book's author Eric Godtland contributes a feature on the significance of females smoking on so many covers and Marc Gerald tells of his experiences as an editor for True Detective in 1989.

True Crime is a beautifully produced book in the Taschen series covering popular print culture. It belongs right next to their 'Men's Adventure Magazines' and the six volume 'History of Men's Magazines' by Dian Hanson.

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