Ruse: The Victorian Guide to Murder

Last week, I read Sidekicks, which was a fun-filled, all-ages story that could be enjoyed by everyone. This week, I read a book that was so good and so different that I mentioned to Rusty how awesome it was and how excited I was to write about it this week. Rusty looked me straight in the eye and said, "David, it’s time we had ‘the talk.’" Now, I don’t know if anyone else has ever gotten "the talk" from Rusty, but it’s always unnerving and makes me tingly inside and not in a good way either. It went something like this, "David, would it kill you to read something normal for once? You read the most random and bizarre stuff that no one has ever heard of. I’m not saying you need to read Captain America, but how about something close to the main stream. Huh? Can you do that for me?" So, against my better judgement, I read RUSE: THE VICTORIAN GUIDE TO MURDER, written by Mark Waid, illustrated by Mirco Pierfederici and Minck Oosterveer, published by Marvel.

You may or may not remember that Ruse was created by Mark Waid for Crossgen in 2001. Back then, it had several thematic elements, which tied the story into the greater Crossgen universe that Waid stripped out of this story while leaving the base premise unchanged. Ruse is set during the Victorian era (mid to late 1800s) and is the story of an incredibly smart detective, Simon Archard, and his faithful assistant Emma Bishop. If this reminds you of Sherlock Holmes and Watson then you have a good idea of what you are in for. A nefarious villain, not unlike Professor Moriarty, has a scheme that could, well… so not to ruin the fun, let’s just say the scheme could do bad things to lots of people.

In Ruse, Waid has taken the modern buddy movie idea and applied it to a Sherlock Holmes analog with fantastic results. Waid casts Archard as cold to the point of being unemotional and balances his clinical ways against that of his sometimes overly emotional sidekick Emma. The contrast between the characters’ personalities allows Waid to create many humorous situations. It also plays to Waid’s skill with dialogue as the characters snipe at each other. Add a hint of sexual tension between the characters and you have an adventure story that is full of fun, humor, action and adventure. Waid is at the peak of his game with this story.

The art by Mirco Pierfederici and Minck Oosterveer is solid and clean. There are few splash pages because the mysteries require pages of talking heads. Both artists manage to capture the facial expressions and nuances that are required to make this type of story work.

Ruse is Mark Waid doing what Mark Waid does best: creating an interesting, fast-paced story full of snappy dialogue. Having been out in the comic book wilderness for so long, it was surprisingly fun to read something so high profile, yet just different enough. If you are looking for something other than tights and capes or if you have been reading strange indie books and want to see what goes on in civilization then this is the book for you.

- David Lee