Page 45 Review by Jonathan
"Speaking from experience...
"A lot of experience...
"It ain't easy to describe the feeling of waking up in the unknown.
"Being in a spot you have no idea how you got to.
"It's disorienting, a hole in the memory.
"And while the most immediate bit is to get your legs under you, it's what's missing that's overwhelming. The hole...
"Did I dig it myself?"
Like 'Boardwalk Empire' meets 'An American Werewolf In London'.
Do I really need to add anything else?
It's brought to you by the same team that produced the mesmeric, convoluted crime epic 100 BULLETS.
At this point if you're not reaching for your wallets, what is wrong with you?!
Yes, Messrs. Azzarello and Risso return with a mash-up so exquisitely flavoured, I suspect they've been supping direct from the mash tub! It's such a simple concept too. New York gangsters, desperate to get their hands on the good stuff get a line on some top-notch moonshine being distilled by a clan of Hillbillies out in the sticks up in the Appalachian mountains. One slight problem: werewolves... Yep. Well, actually, there's a whole load of other problems too, but the werewolves are kind of the major one. In terms of staying alive, that is, unless you have a few moves, and I'm not talking of the dancefloor variety...
Azzarello sends the slick and entirely dispensable hoodlum Lou Pirlo, who certainly fancies himself as a John Travolta-style ladies man the way he struts his stuff and coiffeurs his hair, out into the wilds to cut a deal for the hooch on the orders of real life Mafia boss Joe Masseria, a man so feared his nickname was simply "The Boss". Enough said. Unfortunately for Lou, who is under, shall we say, a certain degree of pressure from Joe to deliver the goods, the family Holt don't want to sell. Not clan head old man Holt, anyway. The younger generation, with more of an eye for business, some of them might have different ideas...
And thus begins the double-crossing, triple-crossing and... hold on a minute... everyone knows crosses don't work against werewolves, you need silver bullets! Unlike the very deliberately slow paced 100 BULLETS, however, this wastes no time whatsoever in pitching Lou right in at the metaphorical deep end of the whiskey jar, so before too long, as one of the more polite members of the Holt clan sweetly points out to him, "You're drowning in blood." Indeed, it becomes apparent rather quickly that Lou is going to struggle getting hold of enough hooch, well any at all, to keep Joe Masseria happy. Good job he's such a reasonable boss to work for! That enforced abstinence, however, will soon prove to be the least of Lou's issues.
Expect high proof liquor and an even higher body count. Between the sore heads and the decapitated ones, I expect this title to keep the sozzled horror factor higher than a Saturday night out in Yates' Wine Lodge in the old Market Square...
