Broken Frontier

The latest case concludes with a death, two confessions, and a heart-breaking resolution, yet sadly the finish is weaker than the body of this particular part.

Fathers and Daughters has followed the case of fictional child star Lacie Lyons, whose sudden and inexplicable death sparked a media furor and, consequently, a challenge to the NYPD – find the killer or a scapegoat but find one and do it now. Sam Burke and Twitch Williams are, of course, the lucky schmucks assigned to solve this largely lead-less case, save for the one, single, obvious suspect that is Lacie’s overbearing father. As the investigation proceeds, the question of motive and – more importantly – the finding of adamant evidence are foremost of Sam and Twitch’s priorities. After a whirlabout series of false leads, lackluster evidence, and bogus confessions from fame-seeking, disturbed yet otherwise innocent individuals, the storyarc reaches its culmination here, and while it does include all the pathos, intensity, and revelations you’d expect from the book, what it misses is pathos, intensity, and revelations that matter.

This may be merely my own love for the Sherlock Holmesian twist ending clouding what should be a detached judgment (Case Files is more a true-life crime noir series than anything so pulpy and simple as an adults-only Encyclopedia Brown, and if I expect it to be the latter when it clearly is trying to be the former…well…that shouldn’t leave me any right to complain or dish out a negative analysis based solely on such preferential ground), but I think there’s a point to this outlook beyond my own trite predilections. Fathers and Daughters, while it is a mystery, by the very title it sports it automatically gives the reader the story’s focus and, additionally, the ending, well in advance. Writer Marc Andreyko, known for attempting odd plot structures that can be excruciatingly hit-or-miss (his highs are sky high and his lows are six feet buried and packed below with a flower garden grown overtop), purposefully tries to write this relatively straight-forward crime yarn in a chronologically helter-skelter fashion, spinning through small and expansive time jumps in order to spice up a story whose purpose seems more to serve as a cautionary moral fable than as a mystery or even a dark, gritty, crime noir tale. The approach led me to believe something vastly more complex was being woven than in fact was, and this sadly made the final part to the epic an egregiously sub-par product.

The twist (if it can be called that) at the end is not an unexpected one, and in fact could only be considered such due to the sheer naked obviousness of its use. A story with so many side roads and cat-cradle complexities woven into the skein of its plotting is a story that demands a satisfactory conclusion; it’s a tale in which the drama of the characters doesn’t surpass the curiosity of its methodical construction, and therefore a mere study of its characters and their dealings isn’t, in the bitter end, enough. To make matters worse, there is no What Has Come Before style blurb to help piece together the scenes from previous chapters to connect with the leap-frog arrival to this final part (which jumps from where part 5 left off and veers into wholly unexpected territory). Neither is there a letters page, or any helpful online resource to help readers keep track of the simple, yet messily told case. I’ve been a champion of this series ending its monthly, serial format and leaping into annual Graphic Novel format, and with the downright absence of supplementary support, either this is already in the works for the book, or its lifespan in all formats may soon be at an end.

The art by guest artist Ralph Noora is pleasant and serviceable; in black and white his lines come across as solid but not overly exciting. His expressions, however, are dead on, and his ability to convey compound mixtures of emotions (disgust mixed with fascination, for example, or empathy mixed with rage) is a gift that even regular series artist Greg Scott lacks. Noora puts out a visually captivating final chapter based on this merit alone and, regardless of the plot’s failings, he nearly fools the reader into believing the events truly are emotionally effective.

In line with Noora’s art, it has to be granted that Ardreyko’s scripting also straddles the fine line of utilitarian and subtly remarkable. The dialogue is no-frill and low-key to an extreme degree, yet somehow it fits flawlessly with the characters and events as presented within. In the end, Case Files is still a book with meat and gristle both, and while the latest chapter fell short of my expectations, a large part of its storytelling gaffes could be sopped up and sewn tighter if moved from a monthly to a graphic novel form. As a serial, Fathers and Daughters simply couldn’t hold together and give readers a story that seemed connected in the least, let alone flowed. But Andreyko and the characters Sam and Twitch still deserve a shout out for how often they have worked and worked well. Ah, well. Maybe next time.