The Fade Out #1

Hollywood. 1948. A movie is being filmed and it’s leading lady is late to the set because she has been murdered. But the studio is covering up her murder to make it look like a suicide. Is this just a movie studio trying to control a narrative or is there a more sinister reason for the cover-up? And just who did murder Valeria Sommers?

Final Verdict: I love old Hollywood. The scandals, the iron gripped control that studios had over every facet of their contracted stars lives…I mean I have read both Hollywood Babylon books multiple times. I love that period and the dark goings ons behind the surface glammer. So with that being said, I have to say that Ed Brubaker has delivered everything I could have hoped for with this book.

The book reads like a tell-all novel with very pretty pictures by the always reliable Sean Phillips and Brubaker’s writing automatically grabs you and you become transported to the late 1940s. You also immediately feel an affinity with the star of the book, screenwriter and all around mess of a man, Charlie Parish. Parish is a complete character from his first scene where he awakens from a drunken nightmare and stumbles across the body of his movie’s star. As we follow along with Charlie during this day from hell and see him try to piece together just what happened the night before you can’t help but like the guy despite his foibles.

If I have any criticism of this book it is that it just seems like it should be in black and white to really harken back to the era. But that minor gripe aside, I absolutely love this book and cannot wait to see where Brubaker and Phillips takes us as the mystery of who killed Valeria Somers unfolds.
Grade: A-