Review by Colin Credle
Hadrian’s Wall is built on a foundation of gritty space cyberpunk settings reminiscent of the film Blade Runner and inspired by the industrial tug Nostromo in the classic film Alien. Although there are no monsters and no replicants, authors Kyle Higgins and Alec Siegel lean into this setting effectively, enabling those familiar to fill in the blanks and jump right in. This is a noir procedural in space, a murder investigation by a fallen ex-cop fighting his addiction to painkillers. When Simon Moore is hired to investigate the murder of his ex-wife’s husband, Edward Madigan, on the spaceship Hadrian’s Wall the conflict of interest almost defies the disbelief we need to suspend to continue. It’s hard to believe anyone would consider hiring Simon to investigate his ex-wife not to mention the husband who destroyed Simon’s marriage and shot him. It does, however, make you wonder what other motives there might be for overlooking this glaring conflict, enough to continue reading.
Hadrian’s Wall hosts an international crew, including staff from Russia, Japan, France and America occupying dark areas designed to be claustrophobic as the survey ship searches for valuable minerals in space. The small crew is interviewed by Simon, and we learn about the intrigue, the foibles and the personalities of an isolated group living in close quarters. You would think with so much technology keeping track of their movements any hidden activity would be difficult, but apparently the Hadrian’s Wall is not fully up to date and there are still dark corners where stuff happens out of sight.
Artist Rod Reis builds an atmosphere with illustrations and settings that are familiar: antiseptic cafeterias and labs, dark passageways, equipment rooms and airlocks for space walking and spartan sleeping quarters. Our characters are distinct enough in their features and expressions, that keeping track of them and their motives is easy. A staccato sense to their expressions interrupts any smooth flow of action, but without detracting from the story. Each panel is a discrete depiction juxtaposed to the next event, which can be jarring, but in this setting, it contributes to sense of claustrophobia in space.
As we follow the investigation into the murder and try to decipher why Simon was hired in the first place, the ship is boarded by rebels from the planet Theta, which we learn of from Simon’s periodic flashbacks to his days as a cop in rainy Seattle. This pushes the story on to a tangent that keeps the narrative moving. We still want to know who killed Madigan and why, but now the stakes are higher and the consequences more significant.
What is more surprising is how Higgins and Siegel explore themes of redemption, petty revenge, resentment, dwelling on the past and what it takes to move on with a backdrop of a space noir procedural. The signature hero of the noir genre usually struggles with his moral compass, wanting to do the right thing, but surrounded by evil and murky characters, trying to figure out what the right thing to do is becomes challenging, especially if you question your own moral righteousness. This struggle instils the drama. What will be the next step and is that necessarily the right thing to do? If you can accept Simon would be hired in the first place and let go that some characters are familiar archetypes, the last half of the book has some surprises
