Whistleblower #2 will be available on Comixology from Wednesday, June 24.
Synopsis
In her small candlelit office in Islington, Georgia has a decision to make. Either the man sitting opposite her is telling the truth and the police are on the brink of a ruthless, immoral crackdown, or she’s looking into the barrel of a gun being held by the most dangerous criminal in London.
And she needs to decide soon: the police are already on their way…
Review
By the time you read this review the last page of Will Gillingham and Stuart McGarey’s Whistleblower #2 will be available via the books Tapas page. The near six month journey to reach the conclusion of the story will be over and the mystery will finally be revealed… almost.
I will admit that I waited for the collected version of the story to land on my desk. Purely because I knew that I wouldn’t keep up with the narrative if I followed the weekly page release schedule. The joys of working in the National Health Service during a global pandemic means not a lot of information stays in my brain for long.
So with anticipation of #2 arriving from the team at Blackspot I went back and re-read both #1 and my thoughts on the first half of this deeply noir tale.
We pick things up right where we left off with our lead, Jack Faraday, point the barrel of a gun at his former boss, Georgia. But rather than lead us further in to the mystery, Whistleblower #2 instead slowly unravels events through a series of tense, dialogue heavy pages.
As Faraday and Georgia trade barbs, the intrigue surrounding the central mystery continues for a time. It holds the pace perfectly from part one, losing none of the momentum when read as two collected editions. I can only imagine that reading the pages weekly was something akin to following a murder mystery thriller on TV.
Gillingham’s approach to spinning out the story is perfect for the aesthetic of Whsitleblower. It feels perfectly paced throughout. There’s no perceptible rush to hold the reader’s attention with overblown drama but likewise don’t expect an easy ride.
The Snow universe in which Whistleblower resides is a beautiful sandbox that allows guest writers and artists to take noir sensibilities and augment them a great sci-fi edge. The reveal of how Faraday was setup for murder, honestly, feels like it belongs in a suitably epic sci-if movie like Blade Runner.
It’s a classic bait-and-switch that the audience is unlikely to see coming and pushes the book through a typically tense final showdown. As things wind up, Whistleblower #2 kicks in to high gear and it see’s itself out in the best way possible: a spray of gunfire and an acerbic monologue.
But Gillingham and McGarey aren’t done with us quite yet, those final words of dialogue and the final panel possibly, just possibly, leave readers with a glimmer of hope. I, for one, am calling for a what happens next story please guys!
Verdict
Whistleblower #2 is a tense, noir thriller which is sure to excite audiences with a richly layered story and immersive visuals.
8/10
Whistleblower #2 is written by Will Gillingham with illustration by Stuart McGarey.
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