Review by Frank Plowright
To all intents and purposes Jonathan Webb has it made. He’s responsible for selling foreign rights for American books, and in 1978, the days before overseas travel was easy, he visits Europe as part of his job. Back home he’s married with two young sons and has a house in the suburbs. By most people’s standards, that’s doing pretty well. However, he’s unsettled. He’d intended to be a writer himself, not sell the work of others, and when the opportunity comes to take leap into the unknown, Webb takes a run-up first.
The names of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips on the cover of any graphic novel guarantees quality, and the only question is whether it’s going to be good, very good or blow the bloody doors off great. Night Fever is very good, the type of character study Brubaker excels at, and which Phillips interprets with a noir gloss, darkening the places visited and posing Webb alternately confident and on top of the world, then fearful and trapped.
Much crime fiction concerns the innocent abroad, which is very literal in Webb’s case, the person who thinks they know what’s happening, but who actually doesn’t realise the bigger picture. At the core of Night Fever is what someone would do if they believed the limitations society sets didn’t apply. That, of course, is an individual matter. Some would still be naturally concerned about others, but Webb relishes an awakening and buys into the encouragement and danger offered by his new friend Rainer.
Brubaker is always an intelligent writer, and an exponent of letting readers figure matters out for themselves once the trap closes in, which is always a treat. However, why Night Fever is very good, but not up with the very best Brubaker/Phillips collaborations hinges on two aspects. One is the triviality of anomalous elements being introduced just before the final act. More serious, though, is Webb’s discontent not being entirely comprehensible. Brubaker does build toward it, and the attraction of the unknown if believing you’re stuck in a rut is obvious, but even after sampling Webb is shown to be cautious. That he’s so easily seduced in the manner shown here won’t entirely ring true for everyone.
As noted, though, there are no Brubaker and Phillips works even dipping as low as average, so the hallmarks of quality are multiple and apparent, and Night Fever is tightly plotted, excellently drawn and very readable.
