Where the Body Was Review (Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips)

The summer of 1984 and a bizarre murder mystery unfolds to involve nine of Pelican Street’s residents, all of whose lives are entangled in one another’s in unexpected ways. But whodunit - and to who?

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips continue their hiatus on their ongoing series books to produce another standalone, Where the Body Was. And the switch from the dark action of titles like Criminal and Reckless to the less intense world of suburbia is a positive one as Where the Body Was is definitely better than the past couple Reckless books - but it’s also a fairly middling effort for this highly accomplished creative team.

Brubaker gives each of the characters their time in the sun and the story cleverly overlaps their individual narratives as the book goes on. The rugged cop, the lonely housewife, the Vietnam vet living rough, the uptight shrink, the lonely kid playing dress-up, the nerdy boy pining for the cute punk girl - they’re familiar stereotypes from any number of genre stories but also not boring in Brubaker’s hands.

The masterstroke of the story is not revealing the murder victim until the beginning of the final act. We’re expecting it up til then but Brubaker withholds it and it's that tease that makes you keep turning the pages.

That said, the ending is a disappointingly underwhelming one. And I was confused by the choice of having a talking heads/documentary-style framing device throughout. I think it’s meant to be like a true crime documentary, where we’re seeing the characters in the present day reminiscing about this one summer decades ago, but why - it’s really not that interesting a murder mystery to pretend it’d be a worthy subject for a true crime documentary/podcast, even with the supporting characters’ soap opera-esque storylines.

Sean Phillips’ art is fine but he’s not given anything visually dynamic or eye-catching to draw - it’s all ordinary people and suburban banality. In Brubaker’s afterword, he mentions how this was meant to be a romance story, and I can see that - but he’s done a more compelling blend of romance and crime before in the Criminal book, The Last of the Innocent.

Where the Body Was is not a bad comic - I read it in one go and the occasional twist and turn is fun - but the story never rises above average to anything that special. It’s a decent crime comic though an unmemorable one that loses inspiration by the end. I wouldn’t expect much if you’re gonna check this one out but it’s an entertaining-enough read.