The Chill »

Jason Starr is the Barry Award and Anthony Award-winning author of nine crime novels which are published in ten languages. The Chill, called "the darkest, sexiest, most twisted noir comic I think I've ever read" by Ed Brubaker, is Starr's first graphic novel. He also writes short stories, screenplays and comics for Marvel and D.C.

Celctic mythology and the Son of Sam killer combine in Veritgo's next offering in their Vertigo Crime line of books, The Chill by Jason Starr and artist Mick Bertilorenzi. There's a serial killer loose in New York City, but the Feds and the NYPD can't seem to get a lock on their suspect, a young woman whom every witness gives a different description of.

Enter our protagonist, Martin Cleary, a jaded Irish cop from Boston that knows more about the case than anyone, and it involves a secret that goes back generations. Accompanied by another gorgeous cover from Lee Bermejo, The Chill is poised to make your winter just a bit hotter when it releases in January.

The Barnes & Noble Review

Having set its tonal template, Vertigo Crime laid low for a few months before starting in earnest at the beginning of 2010. The Chill, by Jason Starr and Mick Bertilorenzi, was both a wise and nervy choice to start the year: Starr's standalone novels, such as Hard Feelings and The Follower, sustain a mood not unlike the perpetual unscratchable itch on one's back, and go Highsmith-level deep into the sociopathic mind. When he partners with Irishman Ken Bruen, the collaborative efforts (Bust, Slide, The Max) result in gleeful, over-the-top comedy. It's that hybrid voice that seeps into The Chill, a tale of vicious serial murder in contemporary Manhattan that has its roots in a centuries-old Celtic myth of corrupted feminine power and the transmogrification of sex into death. Starr clearly has fun playing with old-world paranormal storytelling, as does Bertilorenzi with his lurid, Tarantino-esque illustrations of those who kill and are killed.