Nick Archer is a private eye in a precarious situation. He has been hired by the wealthy John Kincaid to track his young, beautiful wife Abbey and make sure she is not having an affair. Archer does not take any incriminating photos, but that is because he is the one having an affair with his quarry. When John Kincaid ends up dead, Archer is caught in a situation where he cannot clear his paramour without their trysts being revealed and her being cut out of her late husband's will. So he has to find the real culprit, with or without the assistance of the local police, and there are a number of likely suspects to sort through.
This classic detective noir story was written by Eric Skillman, a graphic designer and art director who is best known for designing covers for the Criterion Collection. He has written detective comics in Egg: Hard Boiled Stories, and this is his first graphic novel. Illustrator Jhomar Soriano is an acclaimed manga artist best known for his work on the International Manga Award of Japan winning books Mr. Grieves and Arkham Woods. He does a great job working in black and white as well as different styles to portray emotional situations and flashbacks. This interview with MTV Geek explains more about the origins of this graphic novel.
Although most reviews do not rave about the book, they acknowledge that it is a well written and well drawn volume. Comics Should Be Good's Greg Burgas enjoyed the momentum of the story until the ending, but he wrote that "even with the strange ending, it fits together nicely, and I always appreciate a clever mystery." The Comics Journal's Nathan Wilson called it a "solid story with powerful illustrations." Johanna Draper Carlson found the book "enjoyable escapism that puts a fresh twist on the private eye yarn."
A preview is available here from the book's publisher Top Shelf.
