Author: Ed Brubaker
Publisher: Image Comics
Rating: WORTHY!
Illustrated by Sean Phillips.
Colored by Elizabeth Breitweiser.
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!
I favorably reviewed Fatale Book 4 by Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, and Elizabeth Breitweiser a year ago, and so I was pleased to have the chance to review this one, which I also found to be a worthy read. This one is a very different story from that earlier volume. Set in 1948, with World War Two a very fresh memory, and phobia related to the rise of communism turning the powers-that-be completely paranoid, this novel revolves around the people working at with a Hollywood studio. The studio is struggling and is in the middle of making a film with a very bankable female lead, Valeria Sommers, when she's found dead by one of the writers on the movie.
Not wanting to get involved, especially since he was drunk as a skunk and remembers nothing of the night before, the cowardly writer, Charlie Parish, cleans up all evidence of his presence in Valeria's house and sneaks off to the nearby studio as though nothing has happened. Later, he discovers that the studio has "spun" a completely false story around events. Now, instead of being found on the floor strangled to death, there's a picture in the local rag showing that she hung herself!
Conveniently, the actor who lost the role to the dead star, Maya Silver, is still around and ready to take over her dead rival's part in the movie. Curiously enough, she wants to befriend Charlie, who initially found the body. His fleeing a crime scene isn't his only transgression, as it happens, although his other one is much more noble. Because of the communist pogrom, he's actually only taking dictation from the real writer, Gil Mason, who's been blackballed as a communist. Why they never called that "red-balled' I don't know!
Charlie's doing this because he needs the work, and also because he's a good friend of the other writer's wife, Melba. He wants to help her and the children, since the man of the house is pretty much a no-good drunk at this point. The problem is that he happens to let slip that he knows that Valeria's death has been covered up. Gil is infuriated by the cover-up. And that's just the set-up!
I recommend this story - the beginning of a series, because it's so very well done. The writing is high quality - as I've come to expect from Brubaker from my admittedly limited acquaintanceship with his work. Breitweiser's coloring and Phillips's artwork are excellent - again, as I've come to expect. If you like film noir, you'll like this, as indeed you will if you like a comic well done.
