“Murder Book” is a series of 16 semi-related short stories that each deal with a murder (or several).  Some are accidental, some are revenge, many are drug/money related, and each and every one of them attempts to go beyond the simplest tropes and conventions of the crime drama to explore themes of life and death in a sometimes profound way.  “Murder Book” is the “Pulp Fiction” of comic books, and I highly recommend you check it out.

WRITTEN BY: Ed Brisson
ART BY: Simon Roy, Vic Malhotra, Michael Walsh,

Johnnie Christmas, Jason Copland, Declan Shalvey,

Brian Level, JD Faith, Damian Couceiro

PUBLISHER: Dark Horse
PRICE: $17.99
RELEASE: March 25, 2015

I don’t recommend reading this entire book in one sitting.  I did, and after awhile desperate hopelessness of it all started to really affect me as each story ends with punch in gut, and furthermore almost every one of these stories has an interesting point or unique angle and I think a lot of it may get lost if you power through all 16 and don’t give any of them time to sink in.  Instead, read one story every day when you get up.  Do it as an experiment to see how Ed Brisson’s perspective can shift your world into a dark, dangerous place.

My favorite story begins at a bar in Vancouver (quite a few of them reference or take place in Canada) where a man recognizes a long lost friend of his that he thought was died a long time ago.  The two begin to catch up, and the friend asks him a lot of questions about his old girlfriend, discovering she moved on, got married, and has a kid.  The man tells his friend that since he left he and his wife had gotten divorced too.  The friend won’t explain where he’s been or why he disappeared, but he invites him to a party and promises he’ll explain on the way.  As they are walking across a bridge the friend asks if he can borrow the man’s cell phone to make sure its ok that he brings a friend to the party.  When he gives it to him, the friend first calls a suicide hotline, then texts the man’s ex wife to say goodbye before throwing the man off the bridge.  We see the friend call someone on a payphone and explain that he had been made and needed to be sent to a new city so it doesn’t happen again.  The whole thing plays out in just a few pages, is succinct and unexpected and very creepy.  The killer shows up again in a later story, and there are a lot of people that are connected throughout the different vignettes.

Every story is done in black and white and by a different artist.  I was impressed how consistent the tone and style remained despite having so many different artists.  Halfway through I began to see how strategic the choice of each artist was: the more straightforward gangster stories were drawn by artists using thick lines and extreme contrast while some of the more meditative and conversational stories had a lot more shades of gray.  If “Murder Book” has a sequel I’d really like to see some stories from Darwyn Cooke and Sean Phillips.

“Murder Book” while be an absolute delight for crime fans.  There are an incredible number of similarities here to “Pulp Fiction” and I mean that not just in content but in quality I’ll be reading this book again and again because there is so much to pick up on here that you might miss the first time.  I’m a big fan of this “micro-fiction” format and if this is something you haven’t been exposed to before do yourself a favor and check it out.