Judging books and publishers by their covers (revisited)

     In one of my early posts, I mentioned how much I liked a book titled "Midnight Riot" by Ben Aaronovitch, but how I wouldn't have even picked it up if I hadn't heard about it first under its British title, "The Rivers of London." The latter is evocative, the former is ho-hum and generic. 
      Although there is violence, some gruesome, the book -- or at least the narrator/lead -- is funny. Peter Grant is a rookie (or a probationary constable) who is rescued from a career of paperwork when he proves able to see and communicate with a ghost at a crime scene. Suddenly he's apprenticed to a police wizard and detailed to investigate illegal uses of magic and negotiate disagreements between the tutelary spirits of the Thames. That he finds this as ridiculous as the reader does is what makes the book charming. 
     I also enjoy how Grant takes a scientific approach to magic (I generally prefer science fiction to fantasy), complementing his techophobe superior, Inspector Nightingale.
     I also objected to the covers of the American book and its sequel "Moon Over Soho," for being, one, generic (a tough guy in a leather jacket carrying a gun), two, misleading (Grant is more cerebral and funny than tough) -- and three, possibly racist, because the guy was shown in silhouette, and I suspected it was to obscure the fact that he was of mixed race. 
     When I later discovered that the cover illustrations originally showed the protagonist in much less of a silhouette, allowing you to, for instance, see that his skin was brown, I felt the burden of proof was on the publisher to show that it wasn't a racist decision. 
      As I mentioned in my earlier posts, the British covers don't show the protagonist at all (they incorporate maps of London, reflecting how geography is important to the plots), so the issue of his race didn't enter into it. What was disturbing to me was that the illustration was altered after the fact, seemingly to disguise his race. 

     I don't know how successful the books have been in the U.S. (the Science Fiction Book Club did a hardcover edition of the first book, bad title, misleading cover and all), but a third -- "Whispers Under Ground" -- is scheduled for the end of July, and I duly marked it on my Amazon "wish list" to remind me to look for it.

When Aaronovitch posted this sneak preview of the U.S. and U.K. covers for his third Peter Grant novel on his blog, he added the caption: "For bonus points you can guess which one is British and which one American..."

      Originally the advance cover was of a kind with the first two (see above), but, when I looked at the "wish list" last week, it seemed to have changed to the British cover.
      I went to Aaronovitch's web page and blog, and learned that not only had the U.S. publisher changed this cover, but it was planning to reissue the older books with new covers as well (though not necessarily the British covers, and no word on whether the first book's title would be restored). 
     I don't know why the publisher is doing this, but I was not the only critic to praise the book but say he would not have picked up the first book if he hadn't heard of it under its U.K. title. Maybe there was some backlash against the cover art. If my blog posts had any influence (doubtful), I'm pleased.