Night Fever

June 5, 2023
A man on a tedious business trip discovers his dark side in this taut thriller from reliably top-notch noir duo Brubaker and Phillips (the Reckless series). Jonathan Webb is a foreign rights rep attending a book show in Paris who spends sleepless nights contemplating his outwardly successful but inwardly staid home life. On one of his nocturnal wanders, he comes across a masked gathering (“sex and drugs... violence... but with a veneer of class”) reminiscent of Eyes Wide Shut. Webb slips in using a fake persona and meets Rainer, a European man of mystery who seemingly lives the exciting life that Webb is only pretending to inhabit. Losing his grip on reality, Webb falls deeper and deeper into Rainer’s chaotic lifestyle (more steamy soirees alternate with getting punched up in alleys by toughs)—but when one of his own authors get involved, Webb realizes he’s let the fantasy go too far. Brubaker’s sharp dialogue (“I thought the night had peaked when I blew up a cop car, but maybe it was just beginning”) pairs perfectly with Phillips’s atmospheric rendering of the moody Parisian milieu. Details are choice, from industry gossip between patrons milling around at a banal hotel bar to a trippy psychedelic epiphany, with moody coloring done by the illustrator’s son. It’s not the most original tale ever told, but Brubaker and Phillips tell it in crackling, effortless style.

Starred review from April 1, 2023

Stricken by insomnia while on a business trip to an unnamed European city, U.S. publishing executive Jonathan Webb walks through the night, contemplating his general dissatisfaction with life. He wanders into a party in an underground nightclub, where he befriends Rainer, a mysterious, charismatic raconteur who becomes his guide through a lawless, nocturnal world of lavish soirees, mind-altering drugs, and wanton violence. It's all thrilling until Rainer's influence leads Webb to commit an act of violence that threatens his professional standing and, more importantly, the safety of his wife and children. After five entries in two years of their bestselling series Reckless, Brubaker and Phillips present a stand-alone noir thriller about a man forced to reckon with the consequences of indulging the primal impulses lurking within the darkest corners of his soul. Brubaker's masterfully hardboiled scripting is both unnervingly nihilistic and propulsively thrilling, and Phillips's illustration has rarely evoked such nuances of character or absolute menace. VERDICT Another masterwork from a collaborative team that seems increasingly incapable of producing anything less.

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 31, 2023
Jonathan is on one of his frequent business trips to Europe when he follows a masked couple into an underground party. He assumes an invited guest's name and proceeds to meet a mysterious man named Rainer. Under Rainer's guidance, Jonathan partakes in violent, dangerous, and debaucherous acts until those acts finally catch up with him. The story has the same gritty style regularly found in the other works by frequent collaborators Brubaker and Phillips. While Rainer is obviously a despicable character from the start, Jonathan, with a more respectable life back in the States, isn't entirely likable, and readers will feel conflicted about whether or not he should pay for his misdeeds. Background and setting illustrations are dark and detailed, as are the characters, with the exception of Rainer, who feels slightly out of focus throughout, lending even more to his mysterious nature. This will appeal mostly to crime-genre readers, especially fans of the creators' other works, but horror readers will likely enjoy the more violent and morally reprehensible aspects found throughout.

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