Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Sean Phillips
Published by Image Comics
With Reckless: Friend Of The Devil, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips continue to cement their place as a premiere creative team. Each time one of their collaborations are announced, you know you are in for a solid tale.
While they’ve swung from pulp superhero stories to Western tales to supernatural stories, they weave in their particular strain of noir storytelling.
With the most recent Reckless book, they tell a story of a time and place so specifically, the reader is practically transported to 1985 California.
Ethan Reckless is a private detective of sorts.
Having once worked for the FBI, he now lives in an old movie theatre given to him by a client.
In this newest novel, he meets a woman while investigating a possibly faked death. Having been numbed by life’s circumstances, this new relationship opens him up. While watching movies at Ethan’s movie theatre, his new love sees her long missing step sister in an old B movie.
This discovery leads Ethan down a dangerous path. A path that leads to a world of lower level movie producers, cults, skinheads and several unsolved murders.
Can Ethan find Linh’s long lost sister and survive?
The story takes Reckless to some dangerous corners, as a noir tale like this is bound to do. But each step in the investigation is a step further into the darkness, a step closer to the truth, and might be a step further away from love for Ethan. As the story propels to the conclusion, you just feel for Ethan Reckless, who is very clearly on the edge of something bigger than he ever imagined.
Brubaker and Phillips manage to create full characters.
Ethan could easily serve as a one dimensional cynical figure. In the two Reckless graphic novels, he really is someone who has been beaten by the world around him. While he may come off as cold, there is a sense of one guy who just wants to make things right. The love interest, Linh Tran, is a fascinating character that I just wanted to get to know more. Even Maggie, the missing sister, would serve as merely a catalyst for the story in lesser hands. Here she is a tragic figure in her own right.
Brubaker and Phillips draw inspiration from various sources to create an incredibly effective murder mystery that stands up on its own. They capture a time and place with such clarity.
Having been a child of the 80’s, I recall the Satanic Panic and the general mood in the air and it all comes through in a vivid murder mystery.
If you’ve enjoyed any of Ed Brubaker’s or Sean Phillips work, I can’t recommend the Reckless series enough. An A+ of a book.
