The Killer — Matz
Of all the different genres out there, ‘Noir’ has been a long time favorite of mine. There’s something about gritty straight writing that I just can’t get enough of. From Miller’s Sin City to Brubaker’s Criminal, I’ve read and re-read them all. Joining that list now is The Killer.
The Killer (or ‘Le Tuer’, as it’s called in the original French) is the work of writer Matz and artist Luc Jacamon. A story of a professional assassin, The Killer is a dark narrative in the first-person by the hitman himself.
The story follows a nameless man as he talks about his past and gives you glimpses into his life and lifestyle. He talks about his fears, and how he deals with them. And, he talks about how he got into the business, his views on life… and his views on death.
I help rich people kill one another. Poor people, they can’t afford me. They handle it themselves…
It begins with a view of an apartment as seen from another one across from it. As the shot pulls back, you realize someone is being watched. The narrator is the one doing the watching. He’s a very average non-descript character — slightly lanky with short hair and spectacles — the kind that you and I run into several times a day without a second thought.
I’m not a bad guy. Though I’m not particularly nice either. I try to leave everybody else alone, and all I ask in return is that everyone else leave me alone too. Everyone. Men, women, family, dogs, birds, everybody.
The cigarettes in the ashtray are a testimony to how long he’s been watching. Then, he tells you it’s been nine days. And before you think that’s a long time, he settles down on an armchair and tells you that it might seem long, but that’s not very worrying. The unpacked rifle at his feet give you the first and only clue that you need to know his profession.
Matz does an excellent job of building up the character. The first of the 10-book series is full of flash-backs as he takes you into his past and lets you know of how he actually got into the business, and of the learning curve — the first few jobs which almost went wrong. It also tells you of incidents which define his character… like killing a few would-be muggers for an empty briefcase (simply because he liked the briefcase).
The Killer talks about how he operates, and the types of jobs he prefers. He talks about his preparations, and even walks the reader through a couple of jobs, one a hit with a rifle, and another that’s made to look like a diving accident. He even talks about his aspirations, his retirement plans, and how long he intends to be in this profession.
Cold, methodical, and detached, the Killer has the perfect combination of characteristics required for his trade. What’s more, he knows it too.
As the story unfolds, shades of contradiction begin to appear in the Killer. For instance, while he is practical in all aspects of his life, he is superstitious about subways (because that’s where he’d botched a job early on in his career). Under the veneer of a sharp mind, we see cracks appear in the psyche. For a man with self-proclaimed limitless patience, we see him suddenly feeling edgy about the wait before a kill.
Progressing further, you realize that the Killer’s purported lack of a conscience is given away only by the overcompensation of excuses he provides for his chosen profession. And you suddenly find yourself with a man on the edge of breaking down. With this realization, the story takes a sharp turn and the seemingly slow pace of the book immediately catapults into a fast, gritty journey for the reader.
You then follow the Killer from France to Venezuela to New York, and back again as he deals with double-crosses, betrayals, works for the Colombian drug cartel, and stumbles onto a political conspiracy. And he even makes a couple of friends.
To get into more specifics of the story would be give away spoilers — which I definitely don’t want to do with this one.
Coming to the artwork, Luc Jacamon’s style is classically European where the backgrounds are almost photographic in their detail while the characters themselves are slightly caricatured. And setting it apart from its other noir contemporaries is the ‘lack of darkness’ in the art. While noir books usually have dark tones to add to the mood of the story, Jacamon’s panels are clean and bright! The overall effect of this on a script that is starkly different is amazing!
Be sure to pick this one up!
