Book Review: Ed Brukaber and Sean Phillips Reckless Book 3: Destroy all Monsters

Blurb:

Bestselling crime noir masters Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips bring us a new original graphic novel starring troublemaker-for-hire Ethan Reckless.

It's 1988 and Ethan has been hired for his strangest case yet: finding the secrets of a Los Angeles real estate mogul. How hard could that be, right? Only what starts as a deep dive into the life of a stranger will soon take a deadly turn, and find Ethan risking everything that still matters to him.

Strengths:

This book originally came out in October 2021 which is their third in this series in just under a year which considering each of these are around 140 pages is pretty good going.

Moving forward in time, this story takes place in 1988, and it focuses on a slightly more aging Ethan Reckless who was heading towards 40 and his much younger assistant Anna in the middle of a new case.

The tension in this story is set up straight away and its a change in gears from the first two books which were more action packed with setting up on Ethan Reckless in a more voilent action hero version of the Rockford Files I guess into looking at the relationship between these two friends.

The case revolves around the pair of them getting drawn back together on a case for a councilman who wants Ethan to destroy the life of Gerald Runyan, a businessman who betrayed his father and destroyed his dream. Ethan asks for Anna's help in the case and that helps the two get a bit closer for some time and after the action in the final third,

Re-reading this comic after is a clear design to take the story forward and in a great way brings a new depth in their friendship and is a clear design that the book is now moving away from the nihlistic, noir like nature of the first few books into something new – something by the tease at the end of it something which isn’t going to be much lighter that was for sure.

Weaknessess:

I’ve seen a few reviews grumbling – this is a little middling because of the lack of action in this book and therefore if you are looking for a more action paced graphic novel, this certainly isn’t it and I suspect it could be a bit of a audience splitter because of the tone in the book and the hint at the end I think towards a certain character’s final fate may annoy a few people also.

Conclusion: 

I however thought it was probably the strongest book so far because it took a stepbackwards and therefore it gets a 9 out of 10 for me.

Excellent.