Broken Frontier

In the wake of a past tragedy, Sgt. Sean McGrath is faced with bringing in Dublin’s very first serial killer – the mysterious vigilante known only as Burnt Soul.

At the site of a brutal and seemingly random murder, a note is found, written to the police and containing – amongst a long-winded and at best ambiguous origin – a proclamation: "I am WRATH. And they will fear me." It is presently revealed that Dublin suffers from a series of attacks on its well documented underworld criminals. It seems that someone is hunting them down, one by one, delivering personal vengeance à la Darkman, and leaving behind clues, daring the police to stop him. The killer claims to be a woman who suffered massive, full-body burns from an attempt on her life in a suspect fire that claimed the lives of her family. The killer claims she wants revenge, justice, and due to this self-supposed origin the police come to call the vigilante "Burnt Soul." However, the killer couldn’t possibly, physically be a woman, or one who suffered such debilitating wounds as the woman in question. Something far more complex, and far more sinister, is at the heart of it all….

Burnt Soul is the debut graphic novel from book publisher Coscom Entertainment, and also the red-carpet debut for writer Kieran Murphy and illustrator Marco Tarditti. The story is, at face value, and intriguing but relatively straight-forward one – a sort of Punisher meets Se7en hybrid. Thankfully, for a book that clocks in at 132 pages, the plot takes some unexpected twists and turns and keeps the suspense at a constant high until the very, bitter end. No, literally – it doesn’t end until the very last panel! (Denouement? What’s a denouement?) Murphy introduces a strong protagonist in Sgt. Sean McGrath, an old-school, tough-as-nails Irish cop that may have as strong a tie to the murders as the Burnt Soul killer himself. In fact, its to Murphy’s credit that he writes both his protagonist and his antagonist with an equal gusto, an equal care, that has the reader cheering for both and hoping for an ending that’ll manage to treat the both of them favorably (which, in a weird sort of sense, it actually kind of does). Perhaps the only minuses to the script are the scenes of vigilantism itself, which tend to become repetitious and uninspired, featuring little more than Burnt Soul posturing and villains cowering.

The art by Italian newcomer Marco Tarditti is a bit more of a mixed bag, some pages gorgeous and dynamic while others fall flat when more dramatic intensity is needed. His style is redolent of early-mid 90’s indy books, coming across as if an odd mix of Todd MacFarlane and Rob Liefeld when both were still young and emphatically unpolished. Toss in a slight hint of wide-eyed anime and the jagged smaze of Keith Giffen’s art and you’ve got Tarditti. At first glance, the visuals don’t seem quite right for the subject matter, but the story, in the end, isn’t meant to be black and foreboding, but rather a thriller deconstruction of the non-powered vigilante ideal, and it’s this thematic core that allows Tarditti to strut his stuff and leave readers with a book well worth ogling. I will say that his style is off-putting initially, primarily because expectations simply don’t allow for a technique as concomitantly stiff and fluid as his is, but the aesthetic quickly becomes its own beast and by the middle of the book I was actually looking forward to what Tarditti would do on the following page. As writer Murphy even posted on a message board recently: "I wasn't too keen on the art myself at first but it grew on me and by the end of the book I was loving it!"

Burnt Soul is, at its heart, a popular thriller and a 90’s street vigilante book somehow rolled into one, and if either of those genres do, indeed, thrill you, then you cannot go wrong with this book. It isn’t much more than either of these two genre-specific labels, though, so if you come in expecting anything heavier, you’re bound to leave sorely disappointed. Murphy and Tarditti have put together a surprising, and inevitably satisfying mystery, using multiple narratives, interlocking events, and even a clever use of chronology to achieve its ultimately successful ends. It’s a good book, and even if you’re strapped for cash and can’t put out the full $12.95 for a print copy, you can download a print-protected, PDF version for less than half the cost! Check out the websites below for more details:

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For information on Burnt Soul GN and to order direct, visit Coscom Entertainment at: http://www.coscomentertainment.com

To download the graphic novel in pdf format for a reduced price, go to the Fictionwise site: http://www.fictionwise.com/eBooks/CoscomEntertainmenteBooks.htm