Dark Blue Darkness

“LD 50. Lethal dose. The dose at which 50% of the recipients die.”

A cop on the edge must risk sanity and more to catch an elusive serial killer.

TITLE:

WARREN ELLIS’ DARK BLUE

WRITER:

by Warren Ellis

ARTISTS:

by Jacen Burrows (art)

PUBLISHER:

Avatar Press

GENRE:

Graphic Novel (collection), Crime Fiction, Science Fiction, Thriller

DESCRIPTORS:

Serial Killer, Police Detectives, Saving the City, Scientists, Torture, Birth, Death, Insanity, Drugs, Trust

SUMMARY:

On the edge of sanity already, Det. Frank Christchurch will stop at nothing to get a lead on a vicious serial killer who seems supernaturally unstoppable. Violence on a hair pin trigger, Frank brutally beats the one man who may know the whereabouts of a hideous serial killer named Trent Wayman until his partner stops him.

Only Det. Deb Thorogood stands between Frank and a complete break with reality, but even she may be too late. Reality, it seems, begins warping around him as he heads home. Before he can even think about the strangeness happening to him, Det. Thorogood calls him back to the precinct where everyone has been slaughtered by Wayman.

Now its down to just Detectives Christchurch, Thorogood and the killer. With every other option a deadened, Frank resorts to a radical experiment — one that may grant him the chance to catch up to Trent but one which will exact a very steep toll — his sanity or maybe even his life.

APPEAL:

I enjoyed this story. The afterword, which discussed the real life origins of the tale was equally fascinating.

The pacing was rapid with a little time for characterization. The dialog is held down to a minimum and the illustrations, sometimes wild images, tell the tale. Facial expressions are very important because Ellis steps aside and lets the artist tell a great deal of the story.

The stories are told 3rd person limited omniscient — from Det. Christchurch’s point of view only. There is no reliance on captions.

Warren Ellis sometimes gives you intense character pieces and sometimes intense plot pieces. This is more the later.

READALIKES:

Okay, I have to admit that no one but Warren Ellis writes like Warren Ellis. You might want to try his shorter works that deal with scientific theories taken to their logical conclusions or just to extremes. Global Frequency was originally published as a comic book series where each issue was a self contained story. Try Global Frequency: Planet Ablaze and Global Frequency: Detonation Radio