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Why a crime novel is «giallo»
In Italian, a crime novel is un giallo, a yellow. The word comes from a publishing decision: in 1929 Mondadori launched a series of detective novels, I Libri Gialli, with bright yellow covers. The series was so successful that the color became the name of the genre, and today giallo covers detective fiction in books, films and television — with or without a yellow cover. Italian literary publishers have long relied on recognizable series designs rather than on a new image for every book: a reader can often tell the publisher of a novel from across a bookstore. Covers made for the English-language market tend to work differently, with an image chosen for each title and often tested by the marketing department. The woman seen from behind, looking at the sea or at a landscape, has become one of the most common images on the covers of novels about women's lives, and designers and critics have often remarked on it. It is safe and easy to read at a glance, and it is exactly what Ada refuses: a figure who could be anyone, on a book about one particular girl.