Hooligan's Game

Art & Design

literary agency

A cover design for a thriller called "The Hooligan's Game" Author: Jim Houghton Subtitle on cover: A Crime Thriller Be Creative - this must 'pop" like a great movie poster! It can look retro, if that works. Genre: noir novel, crime thriller, Trim Size 6 inches x 9 inches .125" bleed trim size added to every side. Log Line (on front cover): Hollywood 1988 - A quick-tempered war vet, just making it as an actor, finds himself dragged into an illegal and violent past he’s worked hard to escape. Now, he has to work even harder, just to stay alive. Flap Copy (front flap): A phone warbles in the middle of a Hollywood night. Lance Chester, Vietnam vet, one-time pot smuggler and owner of a flared temper to go with his large body, makes the mistake of picking it up. The voice on the other end belongs to the once-glorious but now-defunct king of Thai stick, Lance’s former partner-in-crime Richie Sattler, the central character in a life Lance has done his best to put behind him. It’s 1988 and he would like to pursue his wobbly Hollywood acting career and a peaceful, low-impact existence without dangerous echoes intruding from his lawless past. He wants to get involved with Ritchie Sattler’s dreams of ill-gotten wealth about as much as he wants to put his hand down the garbage disposal while it’s running. But involve himself he must, now that his name has been floated to the wrong people, including a weird little man who suddenly wants to own Lance and won’t take no for an answer. In just two days, Lance finds himself wanted for various violent crimes, two of which he only witnessed and one he committed with good reason. The cops aren’t making such fine distinctions and want him to turn himself in for questioning and possible incarceration. Lance has a problem with cramped spaces: he doesn’t do jail, so measures must be taken to secure his freedom that might be considered taking the law into your own hands, a generally frowned-upon approach to criminal justice. Lance is surrounded by lovely but inaccessible women like movie mogul Patsy Pope, who once wanted him but has moved on, the captivating Jill Abercrombie, whose total unavailability would make any man grind his teeth, Aggie Ketcham, a loose cannon whose own dreams of ill-gotten wealth threaten to reveal Lance’s dirty secrets, and last, but not least, Barbara Chester, Assistant District Attorney and his bitter ex-wife who would help him if she could...maybe... Lance finds himself in criminal quicksand, threatening to engulf him. Seeking the only half-way useful witness to his innocence, Lance finally realizes that the only person who can stop the madness is the weird little man, the one who’s now trying to kill him. Back flap copy, Author bio: Jim Houghton is a Hollywood aborigine (details on IMdB.com). After a youthful career in acting and many years of toiling in the dysfunctional-dream factory of “The Young and the Restless”daytime soap-opera and prime time dramas - these all garnered Emmy and Writers Guild awards. “The Hooligan’s Game” is his first novel.

Attached is author's photo. Similar covers to inspire are anything by Elmore Leonard Gone Girl Sandra Brown's Mean Streak Stephen King's A Good Marriage The Last Town Gillian Flynn "Sharp Objects" Pretty Little Things CJ Lyons "Hard Fall"

Every design category has flexible pricing for all budgets. Book cover starts at $299.