When P.I. Dexedrine Parios is hired to find a missing person the case becomes a lot more complicated than she was led to believe in Stumptown Vol. 1.

Parios was gambling in an Indian casino and was not doing well.  She was escorted to a back room and met with a manager of the casino, Sue-Lynne.  Parios owed the casino $17,616 and Sue-Lynne gave her a choice. She could pay back the money or she could find Sue-Lynne’s missing granddaughter, Charlotte.

Charlotte is a 18-year-old girl who disappeared very suddenly and Sue-Lynne is worried.  Parios goes to Charlotte’s apartment and finds it ransacked and abandoned. She gets jumped and asked to forget about the girl.  This brings her to being taken to the MS-13 gang leader of the Pacific Northwest.

Everyone is trying to find Charlotte, but not everyone’s intentions for her are pure.  Parios doesn’t know why Charlotte is so important, but knows she must find her soon or Parios’ and Charlotte’s lives may come to an end.

Stumptown Vol. 1 was written by Greg Rucka with art by Lee Loughridge and Matthew Southworth.  Oni Press published the volume in 2011.

One of my favorite genres of story is crime noir and crime stories in general.  I love the excitement and drama in these stories. They also tend to have unlikely heroes who we eventually learn to love in spite of their flaws as we learn more about them.  However, this comic didn’t do any of that.

The only two things I know about Parios is she is 32 years old and has a mentally challenged brother.  I don’t get to see her interact with that brother or see how much she loves him and will do anything for him.  What I see is that she has a brother who lives with her and must take care of him. It felt like a really cheap and forced way for me to care about Parios.

We also don’t know anything about Charlotte aside from she is missing and who her ex-boyfriend is.  I don’t care if she is found or care if she is alive.

This comic didn’t give me any reason to care about any of the characters or their motivations.  I wanted to see what happened next and book was a real page turner, but it was only because I wanted the comic to be over.

I always try to find something about the book I liked, but is really hard to think of something for this comic.  The only thing I can think of is the art is in a style I like. I like the matte style and that is the style of this book.

This is a really boring and uneventful book.  All the pieces of a good book were there, but Rucka didn’t know how to use them.

Rating:

1/5

 

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