The Orchid Ledger: A Full-Color Crime Noir Graphic Novel
Los Angeles. Midnight. Rain coming down hard enough to turn the streets into mirrors.
Jasmine Kwon used to be a police K9 handler. Then one operation went wrong badly enough to end her career, and she has spent the years since trying very hard not to think about it. These days it is just Jazz, a quiet apartment, and Beast, the fiercely disciplined working dog who never stopped being on duty even after Jazz was told she was done.
Then somebody screams for help on the stairs.
Her neighbor Sofia is terrified, and she is carrying something she should never have been able to get her hands on. The Orchid Ledger. A list of protected witnesses, survivors and informants, people who were promised safety and have quietly been marked for exploitation or for death. Within the hour, the people who want that ledger back have decided that neither woman is going to see morning.
So Jazz runs. Across a rain-soaked city, with corrupt officers on one side and professional killers on the other, she has her instincts, a frightened woman she refuses to leave behind, and a dog who will go through anything that stands in the way. As the book puts it: Los Angeles doesn’t sleep. It bleeds.
And the deeper she digs, the more personal it gets. The ledger leads back to her old K9 unit, to the case that cost her the badge, and to a secret hidden much closer to home than she ever let herself imagine. When the law itself has been bought, Jazz has to decide who she can still trust, and how far she is willing to go to make it right.
The Orchid Ledger is our first full-color graphic novel, and it is a real departure from the usual chaos around here. No trailer parks, no cryptids, no jokes at anybody’s expense. It is a straight, fast, hard-hitting crime thriller, every page hand-painted in pulp style, all neon and rain and blood on wet pavement. It is also the first book in a series, Jazz and Her Bad Ass Bitch, and the bad ass bitch in question has four legs and absolutely no interest in your excuses.
If you like your noir dark, your heroines hard to kill, and your dogs smarter than most of the cops, this one is for you.
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