It`s one of those hot nights, dry and windless. The kind that makes people do sweaty, secret things. Dwight`s thinking of all the ways he`s screwed up and what he`d give for one clear chance to wipe the slate clean, to dig his way out of the numb grey hell that is his life. And he`d give anything. Just to cut loose. Just to feel the fire. One more time.

And then Ava calls.We offered you the hardcover collection of Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. Now we`re offering you the deluxe, signed-and-numbered hardcover, complete with slipcase. It`s the perfect packaging to the perfect story. It`s a book to kill for.

Frank Miller has produced a pulse-pounding, blood-soaked, glass-shattering crime story about a thug who gets drawn back into the thick of things when an ex-lover returns with a sorry tale of "I never should have left you, and now I'm afraid that I may be killed." He should walk away probably, but that's not how things go in Sin City, where the weak get beat to hell and the strong . . . well, they get beat to hell, too. Miller's style results in some of the most impressive black-and-white art you'll see.

Hardcover: 117 pages
Publisher: Dark Horse

This is Frank Miller's second Sin City story. While it doesn't quite match The Hard Goodbye, it's a damn fine example of comics noir in it's own right. The lead character this time around is Dwight, but fans of Marv will be pleased to know that he shows up here in a supporting role. This story takes place prior to, and concurrently with, "The Hard Goodbye". In fact, you can see Marv enacting some scenes from "The Hard Goodbye" in the background of panels here. Anyway, the story is about how Dwight's ex-girlfriend Ava comes and asks him for help. I don't want to give away the story, but it may seem a bit familiar to fans of film noir. Despite what may seem like a predictable storyline, I loved it because it is so well told and the art is beautiful. This is not one of the stories that is being adapted for the first Sin City motion picture, but the sequel.

"A Dame to Kill For," which is Book 2 in Frank Miller's "Sin City" series, is now going to be known as the only one of the first four books that was not part of the "Sin City" movie. Given the options it was a smart move because this one tells the story of what happened that made Dwight get a new mug and "The Big Fat Kill" is the better tale of the two if you are going to do one Dwight story and if you want to do a story in two parts "That Yellow Bastard" is a better choice as well.

Dwight is reduced by circumstances, most notably an attempt to stay sober, to spying on men cheating on their wives with prostitutes so that he can take their photographs. What he desperately wants is one clear chance to wipe the slate clean and get his life together. Four years earlier Ava left Dwight for another man and he knows that seeing her again is nothing but bad news above the fold even without the banner headline. He should just kill her or at least walk away, but when she begs him for help none of the cold harsh realities of what she has done and what sort of woman she really is matters to Dwight. He is going to need all the help he can get to deal with Ava, because being sober is not making Dwight smart enough to avoid making one big mistake.

In terms of the "Sin City" chronology, "A Dame to Kill For" comes before "The Hard Goodbye." We know because Marv is not only in the bar where Nancy is dancing as Dwight comes by for a visit, he helps his pal out when the hero of this story finds the man mountain named Manute to be insurmountable. This ends up working against this story in a couple of ways. You had to agree that it is hard to think of Marv as just a sidekick given how strong of a character that he is, and the fact that Dwight cannot handle Manute makes him a lesser hero. After all, it is Marv who labels Ava with the titular appellation. I knew that he was going to get his act together in the end, given what happens in the next book, but for most of this one Dwight is getting beat up, thrown through a window, and shot a whole bunch of times. Clearly Miller is making a point about the healing power of a burning desire for revenge.

Overall, the black & white artwork (or, I should say, white on black artwork) is less experimental in Book 2 and if anything looks like it was drawn with white ink on black paper rather than the other way around. For me the sequence that stands out is in Chapter 2 when Dwight heads to a bar to meet with Ava and all of the panels have smoke drifting through them, although some of Miller's panels where the blinds on the windows make for alternative parallel lines of light and darkness are interesting (there are others that are just overkill). For the most part Miller is laying out the story so that it looks more like a conventional comic book than Book 1, so there is not the sense of boldness from before. But then the story is less ambitious as Dwight comes across as just another guy who made the mistake of thinking with some other part of his anatomy besides what is between his ears.

In 1995 "A Dame to Kill For" won Will Eisner's Best Limited Series Award so it is not like it is a book to skip. If you make it to Book 2 in the "Sin City" series you should be in for the long haul and more of those hot nights, dry and windless, that are the kind that make people do sweaty, secret things.

All items shipped in rigid cardboard! Please be sure to check my other listings- only $2 more in shipping per extra item!  !