Murderous Cover

The cover for murder by burger isn't the final cover. In fact, the cathedral-like head quarters for Barto Burger in the novel is nothing like the friendly little church pic on the ... let's say ... conceptual cover.

Here's what the building in the book looks like ...


It was a giant twisted thing in stone rising out of the never-ending fog in what used to be the downtown harbor area. Blue, yellow and red flood lamps spotlighted flying buttresses, abutments, gabled doors and pyramid-shaped pinnacles in the sprawling mist.

Barto Burger headquarters soared seven hundred feet into the fog and occupied all of what used to be the downtown core of Saint John, one of North America’s oldest cities. The Barto Burger building was the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. In fact, it was bigger than the real ones, the ones with priests and nuns and God, and what better place for it than a city that had been shrouded in unrelenting fog for three decades, a wet little footnote to the global warming story. Because of the fog no one had ever seen the entire building, but what could be seen was impressive with its intricate mazes of buttresses and ornate towers and the thousands of gargoyles with a steady stream of condensed fog dripping from their fanged mouths.

And here's what the rest of the real church looks like ...