Synopses & Reviews
"It's a Bird. It's a Plane It's a Freak!"
Writer John Ridley's acclaimed work including the novels The Drift and A Conversation with the Mann, the screenplay for the hit movie Undercover Brother, and the story for the film Three Kings cross-wires genres, boundaries, and audience expectations to innovative and stunning effect. Now Ridley presents a gritty, brutal vision of a world where comic book icons are real...and where Americans have turned against their heroes.
Officer Soledad "Bullet" O'Roark loathes her nickname and the notoriety it represents. She didn't join L.A.P.D's elite M-Tac squad to fight the Brass or make rookie cops idolize her. She joined M-Tac to kill freaks.
Freaks, muties, metanormals back in the day, they were called superheroes. They had amazing powers, lurid costumes, and snappy names: Nightshift, Civil Warrior, Nubian Princess, The Giggler. They seemed to be saviors and gods. But where there are heroes, there are villains. When a clash of superheroes and supervillains destroys San Francisco, the normal human population decides it will no longer live like spectators at the foot of Mt. Olympus.
Superhumans are now outlawed and hunted by cops. But it isn't easy to take down beings who are invulnerable or intangible, have super-strength or super-speed, or can throw flames from their body or telepathically control minds. The mortality rate for M-Tac units is nearly fifty percent per mission. That's why Soledad has customized hi-tech, unauthorized, very special ammo. Each freak has a different weakness, and her color-coded clips are designed to exploit every one of them. Soon Soledad is racking up a body count that makes her a legend on the force and a nightmare in the freak underground.
But when Soledad guns down a radiant woman who can heal the sick, reverse catastrophes, and then fly away on great white wings, the cop may be starting the final war between normals and metanormals. Because Bullet O'Roark didn't just shoot down a freak. According to all witnesses, she's killed an angel.
Review
"[A] high-octane futuristic thriller....With its lavish fight scenes, the book was clearly written with an eye on film adaptation. Yet Ridley...knows how to make his story work both as a novel and as a proto-screenplay. And as a novel, it works very well indeed." Publishers Weekly
Review
"You see, this is a Marvel comics graphic novel without the illustrations: a comic-strip sucking up the old flame-dripping images of Stan Lee and the gritty pages of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight....Clearly a series, with this opener hard to match." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Violent crime specialist Ridley's foray into sf reads like a glorified screenplay, all tough talk and action waiting for a director and bodies to give it any life. Since Matrix producer Joel Silver has made a deal, admirers of Love Is a Racket and The Drift could wait for the movie." Ray Olson, Booklist
Review
"Thought-provoking...absolutely riveting! I was hooked from the very first page....Soledad O'Roark just may be the first great antihero of the twenty-first century in more ways than one." Roger Stern, New York Times bestselling author of The Death and Life of Superman
Review
"Recalling the work of Alan Moore or Stan Lee, with dollops of Norman Spinrad and Walter Mosley, Ridley's near-future adventure successfully treads the same path so well established by The Watchmen and The Dark Knight and takes it a step further. Explosive, exhilarating, noirishly fun, slyly comic, and wound as tight as piano wire." Steven Barnes, author of Lion's Blood and Zulu Heart
Review
"As both a screenwriter and a novelist, Ridley is one of the most versatile writers in the business. With sure-handed action and characters real enough to breathe on you, this is a thriller that delivers." Tananarive Due, author of My Soul to Keep and The Living Blood
Review
"Sophisticated cop drama crossed with a post-modern take on the fondly remembered Marvel comics of your childhood. John Ridley's a genius, and his readers are in for a treat." Dwayne McDuffie, writer/creator of Static Shock
Review
"Exciting...taut and fast-paced...a gem." Black Issues Book Review
Review
"Amazing...provides thrills and chills." Orlando Sentinel
Synopsis
The author of Love Is a Racket, delivers an action-filled novel about a female cop facing off against strangely powerful enemies in a near-future Los Angeles.
Synopsis
Soledad "Bullet" O'Roark writes her own rules. Usually it gets her in trouble. On her first day with the L.A.P.D.'s elite MTAC squad, Soledad takes down an outlawed super-powered freak with a weapon she designed herself a definite violation. Her love life is no less chaotic. It's hard to find a decent guy with nothing to hide. But there's not much room in Soledad's life for romance when a cop-killer is on the loose. The "baddest" freak of all, this one can control people's minds and make them commit anything he wants...including murder.
About the Author
John Ridley is the author of the novels Love is a Racket, Stray Dogs, The Drift, Everybody Smokes in Hell, and A Conversation with the Mann. He wrote the original story for the film Three Kings, and wrote and directed Cold Around the Heart. A regular commentator for NPR, Ridley is also supervising producer for the new UPN TV series Platinum. He lives in Los Angeles.