EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 11 © 2015 The Book Palace (96 pages PAGES in Full edition)

65 “Ironsides” Cromwell and the adventurer, 'Norman Conquest'. McConnell was, in fact, Collins’ dust wrapper artist of choice for their many Detective novels for almost twenty years and it is not difficult to see why. Although not displaying the powerful sense of design and feeling for the unusual angle that was the forte of Denis McLoughlin, McConnell more than made up for it by his ability to convey menace through the use of colour and lighting effects. Like McLoughlin, he occasionally added symbolic motifs, as for the wrapper design for the ‘Norman Conquest’ novel, 'The Lady is Poison', in which he portrays a disembodied man’s face and a hand holding a wine glass containing a tiny blonde female. It must be admitted, however, that symbolism was not McConnell’s strong point. He was still experimenting and one has only to look at two of his covers for CollinsWildWest Club , which he produced shortly after theWar, to recognise how seriously he was still trying out different techniques. For 'Outlaws of Ophir Creek' , he uses sketchy outlines done in coloured chalks to convey the dynamics of a gun duel while, for 'Riders in the Rain', the watercolour paint is applied in such a way that the whole painting appears, most appropriately,