Coward With a Spine

If you're a regular at Secret Dead Blog, you might have found your way here because you read my heist novel, The Wheelman. And if you read that, it's a safe bet you probably dig tough guy heist novels in general, like Richard Stark's Parker series, Dan Simmons' Joe Kurtz thrillers, Max Allan Collins' Nolan paperbacks, and Dan J. Marlowe's one-two punch of early Earl Drake (specifically, The Name of the Game is Death and One Endless Hour). If this is the case, then boy, do I have something special to recommend to you.

Ed Bruabaker, who's most famous right now for killing off Captain America (that's right kids; Mr. Brubaker doesn't fuck around), has been writing a brilliant monthly crime comic called Criminal, and the first story arc, "Coward," is just out in trade paperback. (The artist is the always-superb Sean Phillips, who also draws the wildly-successful Marvel Zombies.) Leo's a stone cold pro who's got his eye on a sweet haul from police evidence... but of course, things go tits up pretty quickly, as is tradition in heist stories. And that's pretty much the only traditional thing about this story, because Brubaker does something really cool with Leo: he hardwires him with a set of emotions and fears that change everything. This is no stoic Parker, who just wants his fucking money. Listen to Leo in issue #1:

Sometimes I tell people about the rules and they ask what I'm so scared of...

And I tell them.

I'm scared of ending up like my fther.

Scared of dying where I most likely belong... in prison.

But the way I see it... if you aren't scared, in our line of work, then you just aren't thinking.

I first read Brubaker thanks to David Hale Smith, who more or less pushed a copy of Scene of the Crime: A Little Piece of Goodnight in my hands back in 2000. It was a truly brilliant—and modern—take on a Ross Macdonald private eye story, and over the years I find myself buying copies over and over again, because I keep lending them out to friends who claim they don't dig comics.

The one downside to the collected trade edition is that it doesn't have all of the cool extras from the individual issues, such as appreciations of classic crime flicks by various guest contributors, such as Patton Oswalt, Charlie Huston, Warren Ellis, Greg Rucka and Charles Ardai. But that's okay. Read the collected edition, then track down the individual issues. Trust me; they're worth the manhunt.