Maggie Millar and Yorick's Skull: The Design of "How Like An Angel" — Guest Post by Jeff Wong

“What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,
what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not
me: no, nor woman neither...”

— Hamlet (2.2.295-302)

First rendering of How Like An Angel for Syndicate Books.

Paul Oliver and I were going over ideas for the Syndicate Books cover of How Like an Angel. One idea was to have a row of monk-like figures walking along with their heads down (the California cult in the book) with the Grim Reaper amongst them, looking up—which we did. But, one of Paul’s suggestions seemed most fitting for this Maggie Millar novel. Since the title came from Hamlet, why not make the art a memento mori painting, referencing the famous moment between William Shakespeare's Danish Prince and the skull of Yorick, but substitute modern (well, closer to mid-twentieth century) elements from the novel? So, that’s what we did.

To This Favour by William Michael Harnett, 1879.

Memento mori paintings often include a skull, a book, or a piece of paper draped over the front of the table that the various objects are sitting on. I chose to include the cloth from a relatively famous memento mori painting housed at the Cleveland Museum of Art—William Michael Harnett’s To This Favour from 1879, to help sell the feel.

Full-color version of what would become the finished cover of Syndicate's How Like An Angel.

I draped the yellow and black flannel from the novel at the front of the table in lieu of the typical note. Because I had the opportunity to include a book, I knew as an illustrator/designer, I had to pay homage to the brilliant illustrator/designer, Richard M. Powers, who did the original dust jacket art for the Random House first edition of How Like An Angel. So, we've got a memento mori within the memento mori in a way. As T.S. Eliot first wrote to Ezra Pound, and Warren Zevon to Ken Millar (AKA Ross Macdonald), I repeat to the late Richard Powers: Il miglior fabbro. 

Random House first edition of How Like An Angel with original Richard M. Powers cover art. 

This cover seemed somewhat out of place compared with the other covers we’ve done up until this point. In an attempt to have it fit in a bit better, I desaturated the art by eighty percent to have it be more in keeping with a number of the more monochromatic covers we’ve created thus far.

The final product.

Margaret Millar Cover Reveal #4: HOW LIKE AN ANGEL & BEYOND THIS POINT ARE MONSTERS

Apologies all for the lag in putting up additional cover reveals. But I promise this will make up for it. Two supreme classics from Millar's golden age and what might be two of Jeff Wong's best covers yet.

Check back tomorrow to read Jeff's post about the inspiration behind his cover work for How Like an Angel.  Also look for some information on the print COLLECTED MILLAR project, which should be announced very soon.

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California cultists, duplicitous damsels in distress, and dangerously high stakes conspire against Joe Quinn, a private eye who is beginnnig to feel more like a knight-errant

Joe Quinn is cut adrift. He’s lost everything. His girl. His job. His place in the universe. A security head for a casino in Reno just can’t afford to have a gambling problem.

Life takes a turn from tragic to strange when Quinn finds himself on the doorsteps of a religious cult’s tower in the remote California hills. Quinn hitched a ride from Reno but never thought he’d end up in a place like this. But a gambler has to play the hand he’s dealt. When one of the cultists asks Quinn to check on a man named Patrick O’Gorman and slides a not so small amount of money in his jacket, well, that’s just the sort of hand Quinn has been looking for. 

Thing is, Quinn soon finds out, O’Gorman disappeared under bizarre circumstances several years ago. For reasons he doesn’t entirely understand, perhaps for the sake of having a purpose, Quinn begins a lurid quest to uncover the truth. What he finds out instead is that there are just as many crazies outside the walls of a cultist tower as there are inside.

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The investigation into the disappearance of a wealthy California rancher brings to light the secrets of a whole community in this haunting masterpiece of suspense

On a small family ranch outside Boca de Rio, a California city just across the Mexican border from Tijuana, time has stood still for the last year, since the day Robert Osborne, the 24-year-old ranch owner, went out for a walk with his dog and never came home. A large amount of two types of blood was found on the floor of the canteen used by the Mexican viseros, day-laborers hired to work the fields, but Robert's body was never recovered--if he was killed. The sheriff investigating the case pursued the case so tirelessly he couldn't cope with his failure to solve it and quit his job. 

In the year that has passed, the ranch has languished. Until Robert is declared dead, the ranch's executorship cannot be passed to someone else. His widow, Devon, yearns to move on with her life. But Robert's mother can't accept that her son is dead. 

Now, at last, the case to have Robert Osborne declared dead in absentia is being heard before the County of San Diego Court. It should be a cut-and-dry ruling--all evidence points to murder. But as witnesses come forward to testify before the judge, secrets of the ranch's past are exposed--secrets of a salacious love affair and a suspicious suicide, of anti-Mexican racism and illegal border-crossing, of alcoholism, indigence, adultery, unwanted pregnancy, even older rumors of murder. Will learning the truth about Robert Osborne allow these wounds to finally heal, or will it only rip open new ones?