Review by Ian Keogh

After two volumes of fragmented chaos, will The Voice on the End of the Phone begin to pull more threads of this crime mystery together?

Each of the two previous volumes has begun with a glimpse into the past of one of three women forming the main cast. So far Kay has proved the most elusive of them, seen carrying out her administrative duties with the police, indeed being the voice on the end of the phone, and certainly more aware of the bigger picture than either Dee or Emma-Rose. However, her narrative to date has also been the most ordinary, and that continues despite Matt Fraction dropping a major part of the big picture through Kay.

You’ll obviously want to know what that is, but here’s not the place to tell you. It accounts, however, for what happened to Dee and Emma-Rose in The Gun in the Puddle. Having dropped that essential information, though, Fraction returns Kay to the mundane via a long conversation with her girlfriend. It’s dark and emotionally tense, but not what we want at that point, despite building Kay’s character.

A fourth character’s also been around since the start, an anonymous type who runs the police evidence lock-up. As with the remaining cast, all hell has also broken loose for him. He’s not looking good on the cover, and his condition doesn’t improve. That Elsa Charretier draws injured people so well perhaps isn’t a widely advertised talent, but it’s undeniable, and doesn’t only apply to the single person. Dee has been injured from the start, and her haunted look from drug-addicted days is disturbing and memorable.

There are a few elements still to be straightened out, but this is the volume where readers can put together most of what’s happened over the previous two books, and that’s a joy and relief. November finishes with The Mess We’re In.