January may be coming to an end, but the cold isn’t. It’s bitter and relentless. It chills you deep. Freezes you, despite the warmest of thoughts. It holds you and bites through your skin and leaves you helpless as it sucks the life and soul right out of you.
Okay. Maybe it’s not that bad.
But if you’re a sexually cogent male in Jason Starr’s thrilling new graphic novel The Chill, that would be the best you could hope for.
Young men, most of whom are seriously lacking in charm, fall victim to a HOTT sexual predator who, despite embodying everything they want in a woman, freezes them with her love while her father… a druid beast who eats souls… drives a spear through their chests.
Then they do some really nasty things to the body.
Cool, eh?
It’s mean. It’s violent. It’s sexy. And it moves at a fever pitch.
It’s not for everyone, no doubt. In fact, Publisher’s Weekly says this:
Starr is known for his novels, including Panic Attack, but his first graphic novel misses the mark. The ugly and nasty script claims it is neo-noir, but it’s actually splatterpunk, with a lot of plot holes.
Have to admit… I don’t entirely disagree. I found it far more simplistic and superficial than I would expect from Starr. Read Twisted City, and you’ll know what I mean. Or, even the twisted, sick, fucked up Hard Case Crime books he co-wrote with Ken Bruen (See Bust for starters), would have you expecting The Chill to have more complexity, if not subtlety to its plot.
Bloody hell. Admit it. I loved it anyway. Maybe it’s just the weather.
In fact, it may be what you need while you’re standing in the icy cold waiting for that streetcar that never comes.
Drunken rants…