Fatale, Book Three

Fatale, Book Three

Fatale, Book Three: West of Hell is a collection of four short stories, two of which feature Josephine, and two of which feature her predecessors.  It starts with "The Case of Alfred Ravenscroft," which takes place in Texas, 1936.  Nelson, a police officer, is waiting for the ageless Josephine to return.  She doesn't, of course, and he recalls the previous week.  Alfred Ravenscroft is a writer, slowly marching toward death when Josephine rings his doorbell.  He tells her a tale of monsters down in Mexico, but she screams and runs away when one of the monsters might still be living in his house.  The title moves on to "A Lovely Sort of Death," which is a short, one-issue story about a woman like Josephine in France in the 1200s.  Next, a woman like Josephine in the Old West, and so on.

It's 7:30 A.M., and I'm already done with my first book of the day.  And it was a doozy.  Fatale has me hooked.  It's a relatively simple idea - an ageless woman with power over men being chased by a monstrous cult - but this volume shows that a talented team can bring that idea to new and interesting places.  I'm reminded of Highlander, with its historical scenes.  The highlight of this collection is the scene in World War II, when Josephine is drawn to a mystical convergence in Romania.

The colors of this volume are done by both Dave Stewart and Elizabeth Breitweiser, the latter of whom did the colors for Brubacker and Phillips's The Fade Out, which I also highly recommend.  Dave Stewart is responsible for the first two books of Fatale, and I have written of him in previous reviews.  Really, all aspects of this series are so well done that I cannot help but see it as one entity.  It is early, and I am ill with bronchitis, but I didn't notice the lettering at all, which is uncredited as far as I could see.  A pundit once wrote that cinematic music is best when you don't notice it.  This idea has been derided by most, but sometimes cinematic music is meant to be not noticed, just as the company of a favored cat on the bed is something more felt than noticed.  I didn't notice the lettering at all, and I think that was by design.