The Ghost in You: A Reckless Book

You know how I said the podcast was going to be up either tonight or Saturday?  Logistics reared their head again and it’ll be up on Wednesday.  All I can say about that is… HALLOWEEN!

If you think about it, the “Reckless” series has been building up to this point.  As she’s become a bigger presence over the course of the first three graphic novels, it’s not surprising to see Anna Keller take center stage for this latest story.  “The Ghost in You” sees her taking up a case from Lorna Valentine, a legendary “Scream Queen” and horror movie show host, who was recently left a mansion by one of her biggest fans.  Not just any mansion:  The Lamour Mansion, one of the most infamous murder houses in Hollywood.  It seems like a perfect match of property to owner, right?  Too perfect, in fact, as Lorna has reason to believe that her new house is haunted.  Not wanting to pass up a chance to help out one of her idols, Anna readily agrees and the investigation begins.  It isn’t too long before our protagonist comes face to face with one of the specters of her own past, however:  Her mother, who is getting married to a guy she met in rehab.

Creators Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips have done such a great job of establishing Anna’s character over the previous volumes that she slides effortlessly into the lead role here.  Better still is that the solo focus on the character here means that we deeper dive into her history, which helps fill in the gaps regarding how and why she wound up working with Ethan in the first place.  The story itself is solid, though you probably shouldn’t go into this volume expecting the existence of the supernatural to be proven in the “Reckless” universe.  What you can expect to read is a solidly crafted mystery that unfolds with the kind of skill and craft that we’ve all come to expect from this creative team after all these years.

In short, if Brubaker and Phillips want to spin off Anna’s adventures into their own series of graphic novels, I’d be more than willing to give them a shot.  In the meantime, the next “Reckless” book promises to tell us what the title character was up to while this was going on.  Even though I enjoyed seeing Anna tackle a case on her own, I’m still eager to see how Ethan managed without her there.