Book picks similar to
Peepland by Christa Faust


graphic-novels
comics
graphic-novel
hard-case-crime

Britten and Brülightly


Hannah Berry - 2008
    I don't get out of bed much...Until today.''Private Researcher' Fernández Britten is the messenger who would view being shot as a blessing. The years spent uncovering people's secret dramas and helping to confirm their darkest suspicions have taken their toll. Battered by remorse over the lives he has ruined, he clings to the hope of redemption through delivering, just once, a truth with a positive impact. It's a hope he has been clinging to for a long time.And so Britten and his 'unconventional' partner, Brülightly, take on the case of suicide Berni Kudos. At least, suicide was the official verdict. His fiancée, Charlotte Maughton, believes his death was something more sinister.Blackmail, revenge, murder: desperate acts are exposed, and this is no tree-lined avenue to justice. Each new revelation stirs the muddy waters of a family's dark secrets, and each fresh twist takes them further from that elusive redemption.There are murder mysteries and there are murder mysteries, but this is a noir where nothing is black and white.

Clean Room, Vol. 3: Waiting for the Stars to Fall


Gail Simone - 2017
    In this new installment of Gail Simone's Clean Room, go back to the beginning to learn how Astrid was first affected after her hospitalization...through the eyes of one who cannot see what she sees: her would-be assassin and brother, Peter Mueller.Then, a young woman devastated by the violent loss of her husband finds comfort in Astrid Mueller's teachings, only to face the woman herself in the most nightmarish reaches of the Clean Room! Collecting: Clean Room 13-18

Why Are You Doing This?


Jason - 2004
    The protagonist, a moody twenty-something wallowing in depression after a breakup with his long-time girlfriend, finds himself drawn into a paranoid's worst nightmare after his best friend is murdered and the blame is pinned on him. With the help of a single mother who spontaneously throws in her lot with him (not to mention her precocious daughter), he sets out to clear his name. Soon new relationships are forged, dark secrets from the past are revealed, and the real killer comes back into the picture... with a vengeance.

Fell


Warren Ellis - 2005
    Dumped in this collapsing urban trashzone, Richard Fell is starting all over again. In a place where nothing seems to make any sense, Fell clings to the one thing he knows to be true: everybody's hiding something.

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Vol. 1


Emil Ferris - 2017
    Karen Reyes tries to solve the murder of her enigmatic upstairs neighbor, Anka Silverberg, a holocaust survivor, while the interconnected stories of those around her unfold. When Karen’s investigation takes us back to Anka’s life in Nazi Germany, the reader discovers how the personal, the political, the past, and the present converge. Full-color illustrations throughout.

Happy!


Grant Morrison - 2013
    With a hit gone wrong, a bullet in his side, the cops and the mob on his tail, and a monstrous child killer in a Santa suit on the loose, Nick and his world will be changed forever this Christmas. By a tiny blue horse called Happy! Collects issues #1-4 of the mini-series.

The Spire


Simon Spurrier - 2016
    Filled with twisting tunnels, grinding elevators, and ancient machinery, it is home to over a million human and non-human residents. Sha, the last of the species known as the Medusi, is responsible for keeping the hodgepodge of forgotten technology and new biology safe as Commander of the City Watch. But when a string of grisly murders are committed just as a new Baroness of the Spire is about to be sworn in, Sha will have to find the killer and bring that individual to justice. With the new Baroness housing a deep hatred of non-humans, Sha will have more than one enemy at her back as a mystery buried in the history of the Spire unravels around her. Written by Simon Spurrier (X-Men: Legacy) and illustrated by Jeff Stokely (Jim Henson’s The Storyteller: Witches), the celebrated creative team of Six-Gun Gorilla, The Spire is a sprawling fantasy noir that Vulture called one of the “Ten Best Comic Books of 2015.”

Blackmailer (Hard Case Crime #32)


George Axelrod - 1952
    From the Academy Award-Nominated Screenwriter of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S and THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE Comes a Breathtaking Story of Murder and Mischief...IT'S THE STORY of a big-game hunter, fisherman, fighter, visitor to Cuba, drunk, and Nobel Prize-winning author, recently deceased of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, whose final unpublished manuscript could fetch a mint...IT'S THE STORY of a short, balding man with a high-pitched voice and a vicious wit, whose cocktail parties are the talk of the town, especially when a beautiful woman dies at one of them...IT'S THE STORY of Hollywood's sexiest starlet, who manages to conceal things even when she's wearing nothing but a towel......and it's the story of Dick Sherman, intrepid New York publisher, on the trail of the literary find of the century-and the killer who will stop at nothing to keep it from being found.

Deadly Class, Volume 1: Reagan Youth


Rick Remender - 2014
    Marcus Lopez hates school. His grades suck. The jocks are hassling his friends. He can’t focus in class. But the jocks are the children of Joseph Stalin’s top assassin, the teachers are members of an ancient league of assassins, the class he's failing is “Dismemberment 101,” and his crush has a double-digit body count. Welcome to the most brutal high school on earth, where the world’s top crime families send the next generation of assassins to be trained. Murder is an art. Killing is a craft. At Kings Dominion School for the Deadly Arts, the dagger in your back isn’t always metaphorical. Collecting the first arc of the most critically acclaimed new series of 2014, by writer RICK REMENDER (BLACK SCIENCE, Fear Agent) and rising star artist WESLEY CRAIG (Batman). Experience the 1980s underground through the eyes of the world’s most damaged and dangerous teenagers.Collects DEADLY CLASS #1-6.

Ice Cream Man, Vol. 1: Rainbow Sprinkles


W. Maxwell Prince - 2018
    Each installment features its own cast of strange characters, dealing with their own special sundae of suffering. And on the periphery of all of them, like the twinkly music of his colorful truck, is the Ice Cream Man—a weaver of stories, a purveyor of sweet treats. Friend. Foe. God. Demon. The man who with a snap of his fingers—lickety split!—can change the course of your life forever.

Heartbreak Soup


Gilbert Hernández - 1987
    This volume collects the first half of Gilbert Hernandez's acclaimed magical-realist tales of "Palomar," the small Central American town, beginning with the groundbreaking "Sopa de Gran Pena" (which introduces most of his main cast of characters as children, plus the imposing newcomer Luba), and continuing on through such modern-day classics as "Ecce Homo," "Act of Contrition," "Duck Feet," and the great love story "For the Love of Carmen."

Gideon Falls, Vol. 1: The Black Barn


Jeff Lemire - 2018
    Now, its mystery ensnares and entwines the lives of two very different men. One: a young recluse, obsessed with finding hidden clues within the city's trash. The other: a washed-up Catholic priest, finding his place in a small town that hides dark secrets. Neither of them are prepared for what's inside the Black Barn.From Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino, the bestselling creative team behind Old Man Logan and Green Arrow, comes a character-driven meditation on obsession, mental illness, and faith.Collects Gideon Falls #1-6.

Perla la Loca


Jaime Hernández - 1996
    As Maggie, Hopey, and the rest of the Locas prowl Los Angeles, the East Coast, and parts in between trying to recapture the carefree spirit of those early days. "Wigwam Bam" brings us up to date on all the members of Jaime's extensive cast of characters and then drops a narrative bomb on Hopey (and us) in the very last pages. Split up from Hopey yet again, Maggie bounces back and forth between a one-laundromat town in Texas (the "Chester Square" that serves as the title of two of the strongest stories in the book), where she has to contend with both her own inner demons and a murderous hooker, and Camp Vicki, where she has to fend off her aunt Vicki's attempts to make her a professional wrestler and the unwanted advances of the amorous wrestling champ-to-be, Gina. As usual, Jaime spotlights a wide range of headstrong female characters. And what's this about Maggie getting married?

Poison Ivy: Thorns


Kody Keplinger - 2021
    The girl who won't let anyone inside to see what's lurking behind the curtains. The girl who goes to extreme lengths to care for a few plants. Pamela Isley doesn't trust other people, especially men. They always want something from her. Something she's not willing to give.When cute goth girl Alice Oh comes into Pamela's life after an accident at the local park, she makes her feel like pulling back the curtains and letting the sunshine in. But there are dark secrets deep within the Isley house. Secrets Pamela's father has warned must remain hidden. Secrets that could turn deadly and destroy the one person who ever cared about Pamela, or as her mom preferred to call her ... Ivy.Will Pamela open herself up to the possibilities of love, or will she forever be transformed by the thorny vines of revenge?

Powers, Vol. 1: Who Killed Retro Girl?


Brian Michael Bendis - 2000
    Flamboyant villains attempt daring daylight robberies. God-like alien creatures clash in epic battle over the nighttime sky. And on the dirty city streets below, Homicide Detective Christian Walker does his job. Walker has to investigate the shocking murder of one of the most popular super-heroes the world has ever known: Retro Girl. He is teamed up with spunky rookie Detective Deena Pilgrim, and the murder investigation takes them from the seediest underbelly a city has to offer, to the gleaming towers that are home to immortal beings. As shocking, hidden truths about Retro Girl come to light, Walker finds that to solve this crime, he might have to reveal his own dark secret.