Let me start out by saying the last few issues of AHMM have had outstanding cover art. Truly.
It's hard enough to write a good crime story. Some people choose to increase the degree of difficulty by adding fantasy elements. Now you're trying to satisfy the strictures of two genres, and you know some people will reject your tale because they only enjoy one of them. So if you try it, you better know what you're doing.
Devenport, obviously, does.
The story begins with a bus driver spotting a "white lady hurrying toward her empty bus at eleven thirty night. The lady had pajamas on under her bathrobe and big, fat slippers on her feet, which explained why she couldn't break into a run." She also had a small dog under one arm, and a cat under the other.
Obviously a comic situation. But Katie Thomas is in a serious mess. She is running away from "the serial killer in my apartment." His name, she says, is John Fogus and they met in Hell.
Say what?
Katie explains to an officer: She had been in a car accident two years earlier and was dead for thirty seconds. She spent that time in Hell, where she met 10,432 serial killers.
"That's a lot of people, Katie."
"They were all in one place together."
"Kind of like a stadium setting?"
"Kind of."
So Katie is obviously crazy. Except someone did break into her apartment and left hints that tied him to unsolved killings.
A fun story which even offers an interesting take on Hell.
