Hereticus: Eisenhorn (by Dan Abnett) Review

Posted on September 15, 2026 by Arleigh

“Trust me, Eisenhorn, if I ever thought you were, I’d shoot you myself.” — Godwyn Fischig

Hereticus is a strong, satisfying, and frequently brutal conclusion to Dan Abnett’s Eisenhorn trilogy, turning the moral compromises that have been building since Xenos and Malleus into consequences that Gregor Eisenhorn can no longer evade. It is part detective story, part occult-horror thriller, part tragic character study, and it shows why the Eisenhorn books remain such a good way to begin one’s journey into the massive fictional universe that is Warhammer 40,000.

Following the more investigative structure of Xenos and the increasingly supernatural, morally uncomfortable territory of Malleus, Hereticus feels like the point where every bad decision, personal loss, old rivalry, and forbidden shortcut finally comes due. The novel does not merely ask whether Eisenhorn can stop a dangerous conspiracy. It asks whether he has already become the kind of man he once set out to hunt. That is the real engine behind the book, and Abnett handles it with the right mixture of action, melancholy, and grim inevitability.

As discussed in my review of Xenos, the first Eisenhorn novel worked so well because it introduced Warhammer 40,000 through a mystery rather than simply tossing readers into a battlefield full of Space Marines, bolters, skulls, and incomprehensible proper nouns. It let the setting reveal itself through an Inquisitor’s work: secret cults, criminal underworlds, alien dangers, Imperial bureaucracy, psychic threats, and the everyday oppression of life under the Imperium. Malleus expanded that formula into darker territory, showing Eisenhorn’s growing willingness to consider Radical methods and the dangerous temptation of using Chaos-tainted tools against Chaos itself. Hereticus brings that arc to its most painful and compelling form. The question is no longer whether Eisenhorn might someday cross a line. He has crossed several, and now the Inquisition is beginning to notice.

That setup gives the novel an unusually personal stake from the beginning. Eisenhorn has always been a complicated protagonist, but earlier books allowed him enough authority, competence, and narrative control that readers could often accept his arguments for taking extreme measures. He was an Inquisitor confronting threats most ordinary people could not understand, much less defeat. In a galaxy where daemons can possess human beings, forbidden books can destroy souls, and alien relics can doom entire worlds, it is not hard to understand why someone might conclude that conventional rules are inadequate. Hereticus does not pretend that Eisenhorn’s choices were foolish or made without cause. In fact, one of Abnett’s great strengths is making those choices feel disturbingly rational.

The trouble is that rationality can be a dangerous thing in Warhammer 40,000. Chaos does not always arrive as a screaming monster bursting through a warp gate. Sometimes it arrives as an argument: this one terrible act will save thousands of lives; this forbidden weapon can be controlled; this sacrifice is necessary; this rule is too rigid for the reality of the situation. Eisenhorn has spent years convincing himself that he is strong enough, disciplined enough, and committed enough to use dangerous methods without being consumed by them. Hereticus forces him to confront the possibility that good intentions do not erase consequences, especially in a setting where corruption is not just a moral metaphor but a literal, predatory force.

The title itself carries a lot of weight. In the wider Warhammer 40,000 setting, “Hereticus” evokes the Inquisition’s struggle against internal human heresy, and the book makes that idea painfully relevant to Eisenhorn. He is not dealing only with an external enemy, an alien menace, or a distant daemonic conspiracy. He is being judged by the institution he has served for most of his life. The Inquisition’s authority has always been one of the most fascinating parts of the Eisenhorn series. It is an organization empowered to investigate almost anyone, demand resources from almost any Imperial authority, and commit horrifying acts in the name of humanity’s survival. But even an Inquisitor has limits, at least in theory. Eisenhorn has spent much of the trilogy acting as judge, jury, and executioner. In Hereticus, he begins to understand what it feels like to be on the other side of that power.

That reversal adds real tension to the story. Eisenhorn is still intelligent, resourceful, and capable of operating several moves ahead of many opponents, but he is no longer the untouchable figure who can simply arrive, announce his authority, and take control of a situation. He has enemies within the Inquisition, people who have watched his methods with growing alarm and who have every reason to believe that his use of forbidden powers is proof of Radical corruption. The Puritan-Radical conflict that was such an important undercurrent in Malleus now becomes intensely personal. Eisenhorn may still see himself as a loyal servant of humanity, but others see a man who has bound a daemonhost, embraced outlawed knowledge, and repeatedly decided that his own judgment matters more than Imperial doctrine.

The uncomfortable part is that the Puritans are not entirely wrong. This is what makes Hereticus more interesting than a simplistic “rigid establishment persecutes heroic rebel” story. Eisenhorn’s enemies can be self-righteous, politically motivated, and inflexible, but their fear of him is not baseless. He has genuinely moved beyond the boundaries that most Inquisitors would consider acceptable. He may not worship Chaos, seek personal power for its own sake, or want to destroy the Imperium, yet he has still convinced himself that he can master things that destroy other people. Abnett understands that this is how moral collapse often works: not through a single grand betrayal, but through an accumulation of exceptions.

Cherubael remains central to that idea. The daemonhost is one of the most memorable creations in the trilogy because he embodies the exact temptation Eisenhorn cannot fully reject. Cherubael is monstrous, dangerous, manipulative, and fundamentally opposed to everything the Imperium claims to defend. Yet he is also useful. He possesses knowledge and power that conventional Imperial resources simply cannot match. Every time Eisenhorn turns to him, the decision can be explained. Sometimes it may even be the only practical way to survive. But that usefulness is exactly the trap. The more valuable Cherubael becomes, the more Eisenhorn has to tell himself that he remains in control.

Abnett wisely avoids making this dynamic feel repetitive. Cherubael is not just a magical superweapon that appears whenever the plot needs a burst of daemonic violence. His presence changes the moral temperature of every scene around him. He is a reminder that Eisenhorn has become willing to use what he once would have condemned without hesitation. Even if Eisenhorn’s goals remain noble, the means he employs have become harder and harder to separate from the evil he fights. In a less effective novel, this might come across as obvious or heavy-handed. Here, it works because Abnett has spent two previous books earning the reader’s investment in Eisenhorn’s perspective. Readers understand why he thinks he needs Cherubael. That makes it much more troubling when he reaches for him again.

The novel also benefits from the emotional history Abnett has built around Eisenhorn’s inner circle. Aemos, Bequin, and the other figures who have survived Eisenhorn’s investigations are not merely backup characters brought in for action scenes or exposition. They represent the human cost of Eisenhorn’s life and work. He may be one of the most powerful individuals in the Imperium, but power has not spared him loneliness, grief, or guilt. If anything, it has magnified them. His authority means that people depend on him, follow him into danger, and sometimes die because of choices he makes from behind the badge of the Inquisition.

Bequin remains particularly important because she has always complicated Eisenhorn’s tendency to turn everything into duty, strategy, and necessity. Her relationship with him is not treated like an easy romantic subplot, and that is one of the trilogy’s better decisions. In the grim, paranoid, endlessly violent setting of Warhammer 40,000, affection cannot simply be separated from danger. Eisenhorn’s work stains everything around him. He cannot protect people without exposing them to threats, and he cannot build a normal life because his role requires secrecy, ruthlessness, and a constant readiness to sacrifice personal happiness for the mission. Hereticus understands that this is not just unfortunate background material. It is part of the tragedy of who Eisenhorn has become.

The plot itself is suitably large in scale, but Abnett keeps it grounded in the characters rather than losing the story in lore. There are conspiracies, dark rituals, dangerous enemies, political maneuvering, high-stakes action, and more of the strange Gothic science-fiction imagery that defines the setting. The Imperium remains a fascinatingly ugly backdrop: a galaxy-spanning empire built on religious fanaticism, vast bureaucracy, fear, poverty, military force, and a permanent sense that disaster is always one hidden cult away. Yet Abnett’s real gift is making this enormous universe feel inhabited. The places Eisenhorn visits have social structures, histories, class divisions, institutions, and ordinary people trying to survive in a civilization so large that most of its citizens will never understand the horrors being fought in secret above their heads.

That perspective continues to make the Eisenhorn trilogy unusually accessible. A newcomer does not need to have memorized every Space Marine Chapter, every alien faction, or every detail of the Horus Heresy to enjoy Hereticus. The novel assumes that the reader can follow a story rather than requiring them to pass a lore exam. Terms and concepts appear naturally through the characters’ experiences, and the emotional stakes remain clear even when the setting becomes strange. That is why the series is still one of the best entry points into Warhammer 40,000. It offers the darkness, religion, cosmic horror, military violence, and massive scale that fans expect from the franchise, but it filters all of it through a compelling human story.

If Xenos introduced Eisenhorn as a determined investigator and Malleus showed him becoming increasingly willing to compromise, Hereticus is the book that asks the unavoidable question: what does all of that make him? The answer is not neat. Eisenhorn is not secretly a villain in the simplistic sense, nor is he a spotless hero unfairly accused by lesser men. He is a capable, brave, damaged, and increasingly isolated man who has spent so long fighting monsters that he has begun to accept monstrous tools. That does not erase his courage or his desire to save lives. It simply means that the line between salvation and damnation has become far more difficult to see.

Abnett’s prose remains a major asset throughout. He writes action with momentum and clarity, but he is at his best when building dread. A tense conversation, an accusation from a former ally, the discovery of forbidden evidence, or the appearance of something that should not exist can be more unsettling than the book’s gunfights and confrontations. The Gothic quality of Warhammer 40,000 is present, but Abnett does not bury the story under purple prose. His writing is vivid without becoming exhausting, and that readability is a big reason these books have endured beyond the audience that initially came to them from the tabletop game.

There are moments when Hereticus feels crowded, especially because it has to bring together plot threads, characters, rivalries, and consequences from across the trilogy. Readers who prefer the tighter, pure mystery structure of Xenos may find this finale more sprawling. But that messiness also feels appropriate. Eisenhorn’s world has grown too complicated for a clean solution. His enemies are no longer isolated cultists or external threats that can be purged and forgotten. They are connected to his past, his choices, his friends, and his own self-image. The story has to feel larger and more tangled because Eisenhorn himself has created a life that cannot be easily sorted into right and wrong.

Ultimately, Hereticus is a powerful conclusion because it does not treat moral ambiguity as an empty excuse for darkness. It makes Eisenhorn’s compromises matter. It makes his losses hurt. It recognizes that in a universe as cruel as Warhammer 40,000, purity can become fatal rigidity, but pragmatism can become corruption just as easily. The novel’s real achievement is that it lets readers sympathize with Eisenhorn even while making them increasingly nervous about the person he is becoming.

For longtime fans, Hereticus delivers the kind of grim Inquisitorial intrigue, occult horror, action, and Imperial paranoia that the setting does exceptionally well. For newer readers, it confirms why the Eisenhorn trilogy is such a smart place to start. Beginning with Xenos, continuing through Malleus, and ending with Hereticus, the series offers a full and approachable tour through the vast fictional universe of Warhammer 40,000 without ever losing sight of its central character. Hereticus is not just an entertaining finale. It is the book that turns Gregor Eisenhorn’s story into a genuine tragedy—and makes the reader wonder whether the man trying to protect humanity has become one more thing humanity needs protection from.

Eisenhorn Saga

Xenos
Malleus

Malleus: Eisenhorn (by Dan Abnett) Review

Posted on September 6, 2026 by Arleigh

“You have to understand the rules in the first place if you’re going to break them.” — Gregor Eisenhorn

Malleus is where Dan Abnett makes it clear that the Eisenhorn saga is not simply a highly entertaining Warhammer 40,000 detective series. It is the installment where the story grows darker, more unsettling, and considerably more interested in the price of fighting evil within a civilization that has already sacrificed much of its own humanity. Following the groundwork laid by Xenos, Malleus expands the scope of Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn’s world while also making its central figure far more morally complicated. The mystery is larger, the action is more openly supernatural, and the danger of Chaos feels much closer than before. More importantly, the novel begins forcing Eisenhorn to question whether the principles that have guided him are enough to survive the threats he faces.

As discussed in my review of Xenos, that earlier novel was such an effective introduction to the colossal setting of Warhammer 40,000 because it treated the universe as a place to be explored rather than a wall of lore to be memorized. It gave readers the perspective of an investigator moving through the Imperium’s strange social structures, criminal underworlds, religious institutions, and alien dangers. Malleus works especially well as the next step because it retains that accessibility while taking readers deeper into the setting’s darkest spiritual and ideological corners. Readers should still begin with Xenos, but the Eisenhorn trilogy as a whole remains one of the best ways to begin one’s journey into the massive fictional universe that is Warhammer 40,000. It proves that the franchise can support horror, crime fiction, political paranoia, occult mystery, and character tragedy just as effectively as battlefield spectacle.

Set years after the events of Xenos, Malleus finds Eisenhorn carrying the emotional and professional consequences of everything that came before. He is no longer simply the sharp, controlled, and confident Imperial investigator introduced in the first book. Time, loss, and years spent confronting horrors hidden beneath the Imperium’s rigid public order have taken their toll. Eisenhorn still believes in his duty and still possesses a strong sense of justice, but there is a growing exhaustion beneath his certainty. He has learned that the Imperium is too vast, corrupt, and fragile for justice to function in any clean or uncomplicated way. He has also learned that many enemies cannot be defeated by conventional means.

The plot begins with the kind of investigative intrigue that made Xenos so compelling, but Abnett quickly pushes the story into more dangerous territory. Eisenhorn is drawn into a conspiracy involving forbidden knowledge, hidden cult activity, old enemies, and threats that reach beyond the physical world. The story increasingly brushes against the realm of Chaos, a force that is far more insidious than a conventional military enemy. Chaos does not merely conquer territory or kill its opponents. It spreads through ambition, fear, resentment, desperation, and the belief that ordinary moral limits are unacceptable luxuries in a desperate situation. In Malleus, the greatest danger is not always a monster in a dark room or a cultist behind a mask. It is the argument that monstrous methods may be justified if they produce a necessary result.

That theme becomes even more powerful with the arrival of Cherubael, the daemonhost who becomes one of the defining and most disturbing presences in the Eisenhorn saga. Cherubael is not just an evil creature for Eisenhorn to defeat. He is a living contradiction: a being of Chaos bound into human form, capable of providing knowledge and power that could prove decisive against far greater threats. His existence immediately creates the kind of moral problem that no Inquisitor can dismiss lightly. Cherubael is useful, but he is also inherently corrupting. He is a weapon that cannot be separated from the horror of what it is.

Abnett makes Cherubael memorable because he is not written as a mindless, roaring monster. He is intelligent, articulate, mocking, and disarmingly calm. He understands human weakness and knows how to make temptation sound like logic. That quality gives him a more unnerving presence than a simple daemonic antagonist. Cherubael does not need to persuade Eisenhorn to worship Chaos. He only needs to make him consider whether he can control a dangerous resource, whether he can use forbidden power for a righteous purpose, and whether the alternative might cost even more innocent lives. In a universe where Chaos often appears through mutation, madness, ritual sacrifice, and overt possession, Cherubael represents a subtler kind of corruption: the conviction that evil can remain safely contained in the hands of a sufficiently strong and intelligent person.

Eisenhorn’s relationship with Cherubael is therefore one of the novel’s most important developments. Eisenhorn is not a reckless thrill-seeker, and he does not turn toward Radical methods because he wants power for its own sake. He understands the danger more clearly than most people could. Yet his years of experience have taught him that strict adherence to approved Imperial methods can fail when confronted with enemies who respect no rules, no laws, and no limits. The daemonhost becomes a test of whether Eisenhorn’s conviction remains rooted in principle or begins to bend around necessity. Every time he sees value in Cherubael’s power, he edges closer to a line that he once would have regarded as absolute.

That growing tension ties directly into the ideological divisions within the Inquisition. One of Malleus’ strongest qualities is that it refuses to depict the Inquisition as a single, unified force. From a distance, the Inquisition appears almost limitless in its authority. Its agents can command armies, seize resources, investigate powerful institutions, prosecute heretics, and condemn worlds in the name of humanity’s survival. But Abnett makes clear that the organization is full of competing doctrines, personal rivalries, jurisdictional disputes, and mutual suspicion. Inquisitors may share a broad mission, yet they can disagree completely on how that mission should be carried out.

The Puritan and Radical divide is especially important. Puritans believe that the Imperium must fight heresy, alien threats, and Chaos without using the weapons, knowledge, or powers of those enemies. Their position can be severe, even inflexible, but it comes from a real understanding of how corruption works in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Chaos does not need a person to consciously embrace it in order to gain influence. A single compromise, a forbidden artifact, a dangerous ritual, or an attempt to master what should never be mastered can open the door to disaster. To a Puritan, a daemonhost such as Cherubael is not an asset. It is proof that someone has already crossed a line from which there may be no return.

Radicals take a more pragmatic and far more dangerous view. They believe that the Inquisition cannot adequately fight the galaxy’s darkest forces without studying, exploiting, or weaponizing the tools those forces use. In the abstract, there is a grim logic to that approach. If Chaos is a threat unlike any ordinary military opponent, then understanding its workings may be essential to resisting it. The trouble is that the line between studying Chaos and serving it can disappear with frightening speed. A Radical may begin by using a forbidden artifact to stop a greater evil, then justify a more serious compromise during the next emergency, and eventually become unable to see the difference between tactical necessity and personal obsession.

Eisenhorn sits uncomfortably between these positions in Malleus. He remains deeply suspicious of Chaos and possesses many instincts that could be described as Puritan. He does not romanticize the enemy or dismiss the danger of corruption. At the same time, the circumstances he faces begin pressing him toward Radical choices. Cherubael is the clearest symbol of that shift. The daemonhost embodies the seductive claim that terrible power can be harnessed responsibly if the person using it has the right intentions. Eisenhorn’s willingness to consider that possibility does not make him a straightforward villain, which is exactly why the situation works so well. His choices have reasons behind them. His decisions are understandable. They may even save lives. But the novel never lets the reader forget that understandable choices can still have horrifying consequences.

The schism between Puritans and Radicals also shows how the Inquisition’s internal divisions can hinder the work of the Ordos as much as the threats they are supposed to combat. The Inquisition exists to confront dangers that ordinary Imperial institutions cannot handle, but its members can become trapped in battles over authority, doctrine, and ideological purity. Inquisitors may distrust one another, conceal evidence, challenge a colleague’s methods, or focus so intensely on proving another agent compromised that they lose sight of the immediate threat. That infighting is especially dangerous in a universe where enemies such as Chaos actively benefit from paranoia, secrecy, pride, and division.

A Puritan can be so certain that Radical methods lead only to damnation that they fail to recognize an urgent threat until it is too late. A Radical can become so convinced that they alone are capable of responsibly wielding forbidden tools that they stop seeing their own corruption. Both sides believe they are defending humanity. Both can be right about the dangers posed by the other. And both can make the Imperium more vulnerable in the process. Abnett uses this conflict to give the setting real political and philosophical texture. The Inquisition is not merely an all-powerful secret police force with dramatic titles and unlimited permission to destroy things. It is an unstable, deeply human institution whose members are themselves vulnerable to dogma, ego, grief, obsession, and fear.

The supporting cast helps keep Malleus from becoming too relentlessly bleak. Aemos remains a valuable presence because his learning, loyalty, and history with Eisenhorn give the novel an emotional foundation. Alizabeth Bequin continues to be one of the more interesting figures in the series, not simply because of her unusual nature but because she complicates Eisenhorn’s tendency to view people through the practical lens of an investigation. Eisenhorn’s associates are not faceless retainers or disposable mission assets. They are people who have endured extraordinary dangers together, and their bonds create moments of warmth and loyalty amid the book’s Gothic horror.

Abnett also continues to excel at making the Imperium feel inhabited. The setting is famous for colossal wars, massive armies, and apocalyptic imagery, but the Eisenhorn books often work best when they explore the spaces beneath that scale. Malleus moves through worlds and institutions shaped by wealth, bureaucracy, religious repression, criminality, and desperation. It shows how ordinary citizens can live their entire lives under the shadow of enormous Imperial power without fully understanding the supernatural horrors being fought on their behalf. That ground-level perspective makes the setting’s oppressive atmosphere more convincing. The galaxy is not merely dangerous because wars are constantly happening somewhere. It is dangerous because its social systems create secrecy, inequality, fear, and countless opportunities for hidden corruption to grow.

The novel is somewhat more sprawling than Xenos. It includes a larger web of characters, conspiracies, locations, and occult ideas, which can make it feel less neatly constructed than the first book’s detective narrative. However, that expanding complexity suits the story. Eisenhorn is no longer dealing with a case that can be solved by following clues toward a single clear answer. He is moving through an environment where the truth is fragmented, alliances are unstable, and each revelation raises more questions. The disorder is part of the point. Chaos should not feel comfortably organized, and Eisenhorn’s own moral certainty becomes increasingly disordered as the novel progresses.

Abnett’s prose remains one of the great strengths of the book. He can write action with clarity and force, whether the scene involves gunfights, physical confrontations, psychic peril, or full-blown daemonic horror. Just as importantly, he knows how to make a quiet conversation threatening. Some of Malleus’ best material comes from interrogations, tense exchanges between allies, confrontations with ideological opponents, and moments where a character realizes that the person they trusted may not be what they seemed. The novel’s greatest weapon is not sheer violence, but suspense. Readers can often feel that something is wrong long before Eisenhorn fully understands what it is.

Ultimately, Malleus is an excellent middle chapter because it transforms Eisenhorn’s story from a clever Inquisitorial investigation into a more troubling moral tragedy. It raises the stakes without abandoning the human perspective that made Xenos work so well. Cherubael’s arrival gives the novel a powerful symbol of temptation and compromise, while the Puritan-Radical divide reveals that the Inquisition’s most dangerous enemies are not always found outside its walls. Eisenhorn still wants to protect humanity, and he remains brave, resourceful, and fundamentally committed to his cause. But Malleus makes an increasingly uncomfortable point: a person can begin with noble intentions and still become dangerous by deciding that only they are qualified to choose which rules no longer apply.

That is what gives the novel its lingering power. Malleus is entertaining as a mystery, action story, horror novel, and tour through the stranger side of Warhammer 40,000. But it is most compelling as a story about the cost of necessity. Eisenhorn’s enemies are terrifying, yet Abnett understands that the more frightening question is what Eisenhorn will become in order to defeat them.

Eisenhorn Saga

Xenos

Xenos: Eisenhorn (by Dan Abnett) Review

Posted on September 1, 2026 by Arleigh

“I’m excusing a lot because I recognize the trauma and the loss you have suffered. But my patience isn’t limitless… unlike my authority.” — Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn

Xenos by Dan Abnett is one of the best places to begin a journey into the immense, intimidating fictional universe of Warhammer 40,000. The setting has decades of lore, countless factions, and a reputation for throwing newcomers into a blizzard of Gothic names, alien species, religious doctrine, and galaxy-wide war. Abnett gets around that problem by starting on a smaller, more personal scale. Rather than opening with armies of Space Marines firing bolters into a battlefield, Xenos follows an investigation. It is a mystery novel first, but one wrapped in political intrigue, supernatural horror, science-fiction adventure, and the oppressive atmosphere that makes Warhammer 40,000 unique.

The novel follows Gregor Eisenhorn, an Imperial Inquisitor investigating the suspicious death of another Inquisitor and the possible return of an infamous forbidden text. What initially appears to be a contained case grows steadily more complicated, carrying Eisenhorn from the polished halls of the powerful to the dangerous, hidden corners of the Imperium. Along the way, he encounters criminal networks, secretive cults, alien interests, old enemies, and clues suggesting that the threat he is following is far larger than it first appears. That is about as much as the plot should be revealed going in. One of Xenos’ greatest pleasures is seeing an investigation expand in unexpected directions as Eisenhorn realizes that every answer seems to reveal another, more disturbing question.

For newcomers, Eisenhorn is a perfect guide through the setting because his job gives him access to virtually every level of Imperial society. The Inquisition is the Imperium’s feared internal-security and investigative force, responsible for hunting down threats such as heresy, Chaos corruption, rogue psykers, dangerous mutants, and alien infiltration. Its three major branches are the Ordo Xenos, which deals with alien threats; the Ordo Malleus, which combats daemonic and major Chaos threats; and the Ordo Hereticus, which investigates internal heresy and corruption within humanity. Eisenhorn belongs to the Ordo Xenos, although Xenos quickly makes it clear that the lines between those responsibilities can become blurry when an investigation leads into forbidden knowledge and the influence of Chaos.

Inquisitors operate with enormous authority inside the sprawling hierarchy of the Imperium’s bureaucracy. They can demand cooperation from military officers, nobles, bureaucrats, religious leaders, and law-enforcement agencies alike, often placing them effectively above the normal chain of command. That vast authority makes them necessary in an empire as corrupt, unwieldy, and permanently threatened as the Imperium, but it also makes them frightening. Eisenhorn can investigate almost anyone, order arrests and executions, seize resources, and disregard ordinary procedure if he believes the situation demands it. The novel’s central moral tension comes from that power: what happens when someone entrusted with protecting humanity has the freedom to do almost anything in its name?

That question gives Xenos considerably more weight than a straightforward sci-fi detective story. Eisenhorn is not a traditional hero, though he is clearly written as the protagonist and often comes across as intelligent, disciplined, and committed to his work. He believes in the Imperium, believes in his duty, and believes that evil has to be confronted before it spreads. At the same time, he works inside a system where fear and brutality are normal tools of governance. An Inquisitor cannot afford to be naïve, especially when dealing with Chaos, cults, and conspiracies built around forbidden knowledge. But Abnett constantly pushes Eisenhorn toward uncomfortable choices, forcing him to decide how much compromise is acceptable when the enemy is capable of manipulating minds, corrupting souls, and destroying worlds.

That is one of the major reasons the book works so well. Warhammer 40,000 can sometimes feel like a setting built from giant concepts: eternal war, fanatical religion, ancient aliens, grim military hardware, and cosmic evil. Xenos does not ignore any of those things, but it makes them matter on a human level. The Imperium is not merely described as a brutal galaxy-spanning empire; Abnett shows how it functions through its people and institutions. There are noble houses, archives, cults, scholars, law officers, ship crews, bureaucrats, mercenaries, and citizens who have learned to survive under a regime where suspicion can be fatal. The book makes the Imperium feel less like a background painting and more like a living, oppressive civilization.

Abnett’s greatest strength is his ability to reveal the setting without drowning the reader in exposition. There are plenty of unfamiliar terms in Xenos, especially for readers coming in cold, but the novel rarely stops to hand over a rulebook-style explanation. You learn about the Warp because it is dangerous and uncanny whenever it enters the story. You understand Chaos because its influence produces paranoia, violence, and spiritual corruption. The Eldar are introduced not as a long historical lecture but as secretive, ancient, unsettlingly intelligent outsiders with motives that human characters cannot fully grasp. That approach preserves the sense that this universe is far bigger than Eisenhorn’s current case, while still making the plot easy to follow.

The pacing is helped by the fact that Abnett never lets the story remain in one mode for too long. Xenos begins with the mood of an investigative thriller, but it gradually expands into something stranger and more dangerous. The novel moves through crime scenes, aristocratic gatherings, interrogation rooms, alien ruins, dangerous underworld spaces, and moments of full-scale action. That variety keeps the book from becoming too bleak or static. The setting is absolutely grim, and the violence can be nasty, but there is also a strong sense of momentum and adventure. Abnett knows that the horror of the 41st Millennium is more effective when the reader is also excited to see what strange corner of it comes next.

His prose is another major advantage. Abnett writes in a style that is clean and readable without losing the ornate, Gothic flavor of the setting. He can handle action well, especially when Eisenhorn and his team are forced into sudden violence, but he is arguably even better with atmosphere. Some of the novel’s most memorable scenes involve conversations where nobody says exactly what they mean, tense interrogations, the discovery of forbidden evidence, or the lingering sense that an apparently routine lead has opened a door that should have remained closed. He gives Xenos the feel of a noir investigation filtered through a nightmare version of space opera.

Eisenhorn’s supporting cast helps keep the novel grounded. Aemos, his loyal savant, brings experience and knowledge to the team, while the warrior Midas Betancore adds a practical edge to their fieldwork. Alizabeth Bequin, whose unusual nature is tied to some of the setting’s stranger ideas, becomes one of the more intriguing figures around Eisenhorn. Each character has a defined role, but they are not simply pieces of equipment for the Inquisitor to deploy. Their reactions to danger, secrecy, and Eisenhorn himself make it clear that he may possess enormous legal authority, but he still depends on people he cannot completely control.

The relationship between Eisenhorn and Bequin is especially effective because Abnett does not force it into an overly simple romance. In a lighter setting, their dynamic might become predictable, but Warhammer 40,000 is not a world where emotional connection comes without consequences. Their growing trust is complicated by secrets, duty, personal history, and the fact that Eisenhorn’s work places everyone around him in danger. The novel is stronger for that restraint. It understands that Eisenhorn’s position makes ordinary human relationships difficult, and that the pressure of the Inquisition can turn even loyalty into something painful.

If there is a weakness in Xenos, it is that the middle section can occasionally feel rushed. Abnett covers a lot of territory, introduces several important concepts, and puts Eisenhorn in contact with a broad cast of characters. Some supporting figures and locations are memorable but could have used a little more time to develop. The book also has the feeling of a first installment in a larger story, particularly as Eisenhorn’s moral compromises begin to take shape. Still, that is not a serious flaw. The novel provides a satisfying central investigation while clearly establishing bigger questions that continue through Malleus and Hereticus.

What ultimately makes Xenos such a successful novel is that it understands the appeal of Warhammer 40,000 without relying entirely on surface-level spectacle. The setting has no shortage of memorable imagery: skull-covered cathedrals, psychic powers, ancient alien technology, daemon-haunted worlds, and armies fighting endless wars across the stars. But Abnett gives all of that a purpose by focusing on a man trying to hold onto his principles in a universe that rewards ruthlessness. Eisenhorn is not merely fighting cultists, aliens, and supernatural conspiracies. He is fighting the possibility that protecting humanity may require him to become something he once would have condemned.

For longtime fans, Xenos offers a welcome change from stories focused solely on battlefield carnage. It shows the day-to-day machinery of the Imperium, the political paranoia beneath its religious language, and the hidden wars being fought far away from the front lines. For newcomers, it is an especially good entry point because it does not require prior knowledge of the tabletop game, its codices, or its enormous chronology. It introduces the setting’s major ideas through a compelling story rather than a lecture.

Xenos is suspenseful, violent, atmospheric, and smarter than many people may expect from a novel tied to a miniature wargame. Dan Abnett turns the colossal scale of Warhammer 40,000 into a strength, giving readers glimpses of a universe full of horrors while keeping the narrative centered on one investigation and one increasingly compromised man. It is a highly entertaining science-fiction thriller in its own right, but it is also one of the clearest demonstrations of why Warhammer 40,000 has endured for so long. If someone wants to take their first step into this massive fictional universe, Xenos is a smart place to start.

Review: 100 Bullets Vol. 4 – A Foregone Tomorrow

Posted on August 29, 2026 by Arleigh

“On your feet, soldier. You’ve just been drafted. This is a war.” — Agent Graves

With A Foregone Tomorrow, Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso make it clear that 100 Bullets is done merely teasing the larger story behind Agent Graves, the Trust, and the Minutemen. The earlier volumes built their appeal around a very simple but powerful idea: Graves finds someone whose life has been ruined, hands them a briefcase containing a gun, proof, and one hundred untraceable bullets, then leaves them to decide what revenge is worth. That premise is still present here, but it no longer feels like the whole series. This fourth collection, which gathers issues #20-30, is where the long-running conspiracy really begins stepping out from the shadows. The Trust finally feels like a real organization rather than a few names being dropped in dark rooms, the Minutemen begin to take clearer shape, and Agent Graves starts to look less like a cryptic avenger and more like a man moving pieces around a board that only he fully understands.

The collection opens with “The Mimic,” and it is a good representation of what this volume does best. Azzarello ties together two conversations that seem unrelated at first: one involving Mr. Shepherd and Benito Medici, and another taking place at street level among people trying to survive in a world where even the smallest patch of territory has consequences. The contrast is important. On one side are the rich, insulated people who control entire criminal and financial networks without ever getting their own hands dirty. On the other are the desperate hustlers, dealers, addicts, and low-level criminals who are usually the first ones to bleed when those powerful people make a move. 100 Bullets has always had a strong sense of class anger under all the pulp dialogue and gunplay, but this volume puts that feeling more directly into the story.

Benito Medici is one of the most interesting additions here because he does not initially come across as the kind of polished, ruthless heir one would expect from the Trust. He seems immature, reckless, and more interested in enjoying the benefits of his family name than understanding what it costs other people. But Azzarello does not make him a joke. Benito is a spoiled rich kid, sure, but he is also a young man slowly realizing that he has been born into something dangerous and ancient. The Medici name gives him protection, money, and influence, but it also makes him a target. That uneasy realization gives his scenes some real tension. He is not just learning how much power his father Augustus has; he is learning that power in this world is never free.

The Trust itself is probably the biggest reason A Foregone Tomorrow feels like such a major turning point. Earlier books gave readers names like Augustus Medici and Megan Dietrich, along with hints about a hidden system that existed beyond regular crime families and street gangs. Here, the curtain gets pulled back much further. The Trust is revealed as a collection of powerful old families whose influence stretches across the country, while the Minutemen were created as their enforcers and internal police. The scope is suddenly much bigger than one person deciding whether to pull the trigger on somebody who wronged them. Agent Graves is not simply handing out opportunities for revenge. He is using those opportunities to destabilize a system that has spent generations protecting itself.

That expansion does make the book denser than the first three collections. Readers who liked the clean, self-contained revenge stories from First Shot, Last Call may need a little patience here. Azzarello is deliberately withholding information, and a lot of dialogue involves people speaking around the truth rather than plainly stating it. Characters mention events, names, and old betrayals that do not fully make sense until later. But that is also part of the fun. 100 Bullets is becoming a crime epic where every casual insult, odd coincidence, and brief appearance may eventually matter. The book trusts readers to keep up, and even when the plot gets murky, it rarely stops being compelling.

The Jack Daw material is probably the weakest portion of the collection, though it still has its uses. Jack is a huge, self-destructive junkie who already has one of Graves’s cases when the reader meets him. That is an interesting reversal of the usual formula because we do not see the initial pitch or the moment of temptation. We are instead dropped into the aftermath of a man who has already been given a chance to change his life and has clearly made a mess of it. Jack is not especially sympathetic, and the story never quite reaches the emotional impact of Dizzy Cordova’s or Loop Hughes’s earlier arcs. Still, he feels like another example of the kind of damaged person Graves is collecting. He is not a hero waiting to be awakened. He is a wrecking ball waiting for someone to point him in a direction.

The more memorable material comes from the way Azzarello keeps connecting old threads to new ones. Mr. Branch, who has spent much of the series trying to understand the conspiracy around Graves, becomes increasingly important as someone who sees patterns other characters are too close to notice. The story also takes a detour into the past with a strange, darkly funny episode involving baseball, Hollywood, and the Kennedy assassination. It is the kind of side story that might feel random in another series, but it works here because it reinforces the sense that Agent Graves has been active for a very long time. His briefcases are not a recent hobby. They are part of a much older game.

There is also an unexpectedly funny stretch involving a trip to Mexico, though the humor never makes the story feel safe. Azzarello has a talent for writing characters who can trade ridiculous insults and crude jokes one minute, then become frighteningly violent the next. That tonal balance is one of the things that keeps 100 Bullets from becoming unbearably grim. These people are living ugly lives in ugly places, but they still have personality. They still argue, posture, flirt, lie, and make each other laugh. The humor is usually mean, but it feels authentic to the world rather than forced comic relief.

Eduardo Risso remains the series’ secret weapon, even though by this point it is hard to call him a secret. His art gives every character an immediately recognizable silhouette and attitude. There are a lot of people in this volume, including gangsters, Trust members, old associates, street criminals, and potential Minutemen, yet Risso makes it easy to tell them apart. Benito looks like a privileged kid trying to wear confidence like a costume. Shepherd always carries himself with quiet control. Graves is still composed and unreadable, like somebody who has already calculated every possible outcome before entering the room.

Risso’s layouts are especially strong in the opening material, where different conversations and locations are visually paired to show how the powerful and powerless reflect each other. He can make a simple exchange in a park, a bar, or a hotel suite feel loaded with menace. His use of shadows, extreme angles, and stylized expressions gives the book its distinctive noir personality, but he never lets the style overwhelm the storytelling. You always know where to look and what emotional beat matters most. The guest pinup pages included around the original twenty-fifth issue are a neat bonus, though they do not have the same storytelling impact as Risso’s regular pages.

A Foregone Tomorrow is not as emotionally focused as Hang Up on the Hang Low, and it can feel more like a bridge volume than a completely self-contained story. But it is a very important bridge. This is where the series proves that its revenge setup was never just a clever anthology gimmick. The briefcases, bullets, and personal vendettas are all part of a larger conflict between men and women who believe they own the world and the people willing to burn that world down. By the end, Agent Graves is still mysterious, the Trust is still dangerous, and the Minutemen are only beginning to emerge from the past. But the road ahead is much clearer, and much more threatening.

100 Bullets Vol. 4: A Foregone Tomorrow is a strong, complicated, and occasionally messy installment that rewards readers who have been paying attention. Azzarello continues building the series into a sprawling noir conspiracy filled with damaged people, crooked power structures, and revenge that never comes without a price. Risso keeps the whole thing looking stylish, dangerous, and alive. It may not be the easiest volume to jump into, but for anyone following the series from the beginning, this is the point where the larger machine finally starts roaring to life.

100 Bullets Volume Reviews

Review: Transmetropolitan Vol. 2 – Lust for Life

Posted on August 21, 2026 by Arleigh

“You people don’t know what the truth is! It’s there, just under their bullshit, but you never look! That’s what I hate most about this fucking city—lies are news and the truth is obsolete!” — Spider Jerusalem

When you crack open the second volume of Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson’s Transmetropolitan, collected as Lust for Life, you’re not just getting another fix of cyberpunk chaos. You’re getting a book that solidifies exactly why this series is so brutally timeless. The first volume, Back on the Street, introduced us to the magnificent, drug-fueled trainwreck that is Spider Jerusalem and the grotesque, sprawling City he calls home. The second volume, however, is where the series finds its real footing. It’s not just about the loud, visceral shock value—though there’s plenty of that—but about deepening the world and its characters in a way that hits uncomfortably close to home.

Spider Jerusalem is, and always will be, the heart of this series. He’s a chain-smoking, drug-abusing, perpetually enraged journalist in the mold of Hunter S. Thompson, armed with a bowel disruptor and a vicious tongue. He’s a complete and utter bastard to almost everyone he meets, prone to violent outbursts and scatological tirades. And yet, he’s our hero because he’s one of the few people in this future who actually gives a damn. His entire reason for being is his unwavering, almost religious, dedication to “The Truth.” He despises the apathy of the masses as much as the corruption of the powerful, and he’s willing to burn his life down to expose both. This volume showcases that beautifully, adding a layer of vulnerability that prevents him from becoming a one-note caricature. He’s a misanthrope who somehow still cares, and that tension is what makes him so compelling.

Lust for Life collects issues thirteen through twenty-four, and it’s structured more as a series of vignettes than a single, driving narrative. This is actually its greatest strength, as it allows Ellis and Robertson to expand the world and build the supporting cast in ways a more focused plot wouldn’t allow. A major chunk of the book is dedicated to the insane adventure of the frozen head of Spider’s ex-wife being stolen. It’s a gloriously bizarre plot, full of the kind of absurd, high-stakes chaos that Transmetropolitan does so well.

But the real emotional heft of Lust for Life comes from the quieter, more tragic stories woven between the gunfights and drug-induced rants. One of the most powerful sequences focuses on Channon, Spider’s long-suffering assistant. She’s a pillar of strength, constantly cleaning up Spider’s messes, but this volume shows her vulnerability. Her boyfriend decides to undergo a process to become a “gaseous vapor,” leaving his body behind for a formless existence. It’s a concept that sounds completely outlandish, but the execution is devastating. Ellis writes it not as a sci-fi gimmick but as a heartbreaking exploration of letting go, of watching someone you love choose a path you can’t follow. Channon’s pain and helplessness are palpable, grounding the over-the-top world in real human emotion.

Then there’s the story of Mary, a woman from our recent past who was cryogenically frozen and wakes up in the City. She’s presented as a historical relic, a simple photographer from the twentieth century who is completely out of her depth in this frantic, hyper-consumerist future. This is where the book delivers its most potent gut-punch. Mary is us. She’s the reader, trying to make sense of this alien world, and she fails. The City is a claustrophobic nightmare even for the people who were born into it, but for Mary, it’s a terrifying prison of isolation and confusion. Her story is a bleak reminder that this “progress” we’re supposedly heading toward often comes at the cost of our humanity. It’s a deeply existential and sad tale that serves as a harsh critique of the very future we might be trying to build.

Now, while Transmetropolitan is set in a hyper-exaggerated, grotesque future, the reason it remains so relevant is that the satire has proven to be uncomfortably prophetic. The City is a sprawling, neon-drenched hellscape where the line between news and entertainment has completely dissolved, where handheld devices connect everyone to a digital stream of information, and where journalism has devolved into a race for ratings and eyeballs. It’s a world where media personalities are more influential than politicians, and political leaders are cynical, manipulative populists who are experts at gaming the system. Sound familiar?

The landscape of modern journalism feels like a grim step toward this world. The “Death of Truth” that Spider rails against is a concept that has become a cornerstone of our current political and media discourse. The Beast and The Smiler, the corrupt politicians in the series, aren’t just cartoon villains; they’re mirrors reflecting a world of political spin, gerrymandering, and where the “villains” are often the ones controlling the narrative. Spider’s constant, violent struggle to get the real story feels less like a sci-fi fantasy and more like a desperate wish-fulfillment for anyone frustrated with the spin and half-truths of modern politics.

When Spider writes his column, “I Hate It Here,” he’s speaking for a populace that feels powerless and manipulated, a populace nicknamed “The New Scum” by the establishment. This social commentary hits hard because you can see its echoes everywhere today. The series suggests that technology has advanced, but human nature—our greed, our apathy, our susceptibility to manipulation—has not. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but it’s what gives the book its power.

Transmetropolitan Vol. 2: Lust for Life might be a little light on overarching plot for some readers’ tastes. It’s not a major political arc; it’s more of a character study of the city and its inhabitants. But that’s precisely why it’s so effective. It proves that the series isn’t just a one-trick pony of cyberpunk fury. It has a heart, a soul, and a searing intelligence that cuts to the bone of our own societal failings. It’s a book that will make you laugh at its absurdity one minute and then leave you staring at the wall in quiet contemplation the next. It reinforces that even a nihilistic, drug-addled, foul-mouthed bastard like Spider Jerusalem is exactly the kind of hero we need to remind us of what we’re losing.

Transmetropolitan Volume Reviews

Volume 1: Back on the Street

Review: Transmetropolitan Vol. 1 – Back on the Street

Posted on August 14, 2026 by Arleigh

“Journalism is just a gun. It’s only got one bullet in it, but if you aim right, that’s all you need. Aim it right, and you can blow a kneecap off the world.” — Spider Jerusalem

There is a particular kind of jolt that comes from revisiting a story written decades earlier and realizing it was not so much predicting the future as identifying a sickness already taking hold. Written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Darick Robertson, Transmetropolitan Vol. 1: Back on the Street is exactly that kind of book. It is loud, filthy, hilarious, and vicious in all the ways it needs to be, and it lands differently now than it likely did in the late nineties. What once read primarily as a wild, hyperbolic satire of politics, media, consumerism, and public numbness now can feel unnervingly close to reportage with the names changed. Its 23rd-century City remains an over-the-top cyberpunk nightmare, but the institutions, personalities, and manufactured distractions running it feel very familiar.

The volume begins with Spider Jerusalem living in isolation, hiding in the mountains after abandoning the City and the career that made him famous. He has a book contract to fulfill, a pile of debts to settle, and no actual desire to rejoin civilized life. Unfortunately for him, the people financing his escape have had enough. Spider is forced back into the City, a vast, overcrowded cyberpunk metropolis that seems to have taken every bad impulse of contemporary society and pushed it beyond all reasonable limits. His return is not a heroic homecoming. It is more like dropping an angry, drug-addled, heavily armed journalist into the middle of a garbage fire and asking him to write a column about the smoke.

Spider’s immediate appeal is that he has no interest in performing respectability. He is rude, vindictive, profane, selfish, and fully capable of treating even his friends terribly. He uses violence too casually, insults everyone around him, and carries a bowel disruptor gun that can incapacitate people in the most humiliating manner imaginable. In another book, these traits might make him an unbearable edgelord. Back on the Street, however, understands that Spider’s ugliness is part of a larger contradiction. He is not cruel because he does not care; he is cruel because he cares too much and has no healthy way of processing how badly the world fails ordinary people.

That is what makes him more than a Hunter S. Thompson imitation with futuristic sunglasses. Spider is a gonzo journalist, but his journalism is not merely an excuse for a manic lifestyle or a stage for his personality. At his best, he is driven by an almost old-fashioned moral belief that the truth matters, that citizens deserve to know what is being done in their name, and that powerful people should not be allowed to bury their crimes under public-relations language. The series positions journalism as something active rather than passive. Spider does not just report what happens; he investigates, provokes, exposes, and refuses to let the comfortable look away.

His column, “I Hate It Here,” captures the character’s relationship with the City. Spider hates it because he sees it clearly. He sees the absurdity of its consumer culture, the cruelty hiding behind political slogans, and the way people are taught to accept exploitation as normal. Yet he also understands the City in a way that few other characters do. It is full of strange, desperate, damaged people trying to survive in a system that is too big, too loud, and too indifferent to care whether they live with dignity. Spider’s contempt is not aimed equally at everyone. He has little patience for complacency, hypocrisy, and stupidity, but he shows genuine anger when vulnerable people are victimized by police, politicians, corporations, or public indifference. His idealism is twisted, abrasive, and buried beneath several layers of chemical abuse, but it is still idealism.

The City itself is the book’s other major character. Robertson’s art sells its overwhelming scale and ugliness. Every street looks packed with signs, body modifications, crowds, trash, strange fashion, predatory businesses, and people whose lives have been reshaped by technology in ways both liberating and grotesque. The future is not sleek in the familiar science-fiction sense. It is grubby, crowded, commercial, and deeply human. People can alter their bodies, change their identities, pursue bizarre new faiths, and live inside an endless stream of media stimulation, but none of those developments have solved poverty, loneliness, corruption, or abuse of power.

That is why the book has aged more effectively than many stories set in a supposedly distant future. Its technology is exaggerated, but its social anxieties feel much closer now. The City is saturated with information, yet its people are often less informed than ever. Everyone has access to spectacle, outrage, personality-driven media, and instant distractions, but the institutions shaping their lives remain opaque and unaccountable. The comic’s dystopia is not based on the idea that technology automatically destroys humanity. Instead, it suggests that technology amplifies the priorities already built into society. If a culture values profit, spectacle, division, and convenience over empathy and truth, more advanced technology simply gives those impulses more efficient tools.

The political material in this first volume is especially pointed. Ellis is interested in the gap between public image and actual power. Politicians do not need to be secretly subtle or brilliant to be dangerous; they only need to understand how to manipulate fear, identity, frustration, and media attention. The institutions around them—police, corporate media, wealthy interests, and political operatives—help sustain the illusion that ordinary people have meaningful control while making sure the system remains insulated from consequences. The book’s vision of power can be blunt, but bluntness is part of its style. Transmetropolitan does not whisper its anger. It shouts because it believes politeness is often one of the tools that lets abuse continue unchallenged.

At the same time, Back on the Street is not flawless. Its satire can be so broad that it occasionally feels like the story is pointing at a target with both hands and yelling until the reader gets it. Some of the shock humor and sexual material carry an intentionally trashy late-nineties edge that may feel juvenile or dated. The supporting cast is still taking shape, so many people primarily exist as foils for Spider’s verbal attacks or examples of the City’s bizarre social landscape. The book’s relentless attitude can also wear readers down if they need a more emotionally grounded entry point.

Still, the excess is usually purposeful. This is a world where the boundaries between entertainment, propaganda, commerce, and personal identity have all but collapsed, so subtle world-building would almost be dishonest. The visual and verbal overload puts the reader in Spider’s position: constantly assaulted by nonsense, constantly asked to separate meaningful horror from everyday noise. The absurdity makes the real injustice sharper. A city can be full of outrageous fashion, talking animals, hallucinogens, and body-modification trends, yet its most disturbing feature remains how easily human suffering is turned into content, data, or a political talking point.

Ultimately, Transmetropolitan Vol. 1: Back on the Street works because Spider Jerusalem is not presented as a clean solution to a corrupt society. He is a mess, an irritant, and sometimes a monster in miniature. But he is also someone who refuses to be numb. In a world built to keep people distracted, passive, and exhausted, that refusal has real value. The book’s cyberpunk future remains wildly over-the-top, but its central warning feels uncomfortably familiar: the most dangerous dystopias are not always the ones with impossible technology. Sometimes they are the ones where the public is flooded with noise, the powerful face no consequences, and telling the truth becomes an act of open rebellion.

Review: 100 Bullets Vol. 3 – Hang Up on the Hang Low

Posted on August 10, 2026 by Arleigh

“I never told you to kill him. I just gave you the opportunity.” — Agent Graves

With Hang Up on the Hang Low, Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso continue to prove that 100 Bullets is far more than a series about revenge fantasies and mysterious briefcases. The first two collections introduced the basic concept of Agent Graves approaching damaged people with a gun, one hundred untraceable bullets, and proof of who ruined their lives. That premise was already strong, but this third volume starts showing just how much uglier and more complicated the world around Graves really is. This is where the series begins to feel less like a set of loosely connected crime stories and more like a large, carefully constructed noir epic. The revenge angle is still present, but it is no longer the whole point. The people who receive Graves’s offer are getting pulled into a much bigger machine, whether they realize it or not.

The main character this time is Loop Hughes, a young man who has spent much of his life acting tougher, smarter, and more connected than he actually is. He is a small-time street hustler, someone who talks a good game but clearly has no real direction in life. That makes him an interesting choice for Agent Graves. Loop is not someone who has already been crushed by a terrible tragedy in the same direct way as Dizzy Cordova or Lee Dolan. His grievance is more personal and more complicated: his father, a man known as the Rain, abandoned him and his mother when he was still a child. Loop has built up years of anger around that absence, even if he has never really known what to do with it.

When Graves gives Loop one of his trademark attaché cases, it seems at first like another straightforward setup. Loop has the gun, the bullets, the evidence, and the freedom to act without legal consequences. The temptation is there, and Azzarello makes it easy to understand why Loop would want to pull the trigger. The Rain did not just leave; he left a hole in Loop’s life that the younger man has filled with insecurity, bravado, and bad decisions. But the story becomes much more interesting when Loop finally finds his father and discovers that the Rain is not some helpless old man waiting to be punished. He is deeply involved with dangerous people and has his own place in the criminal underworld.

That is where Hang Up on the Hang Low really finds its momentum. Rather than immediately becoming a story about a son taking revenge on his father, it turns into a story about Loop being drawn into the world that helped create his father in the first place. The Rain is connected to organized crime, old grudges, and the kind of people who can make a murder look like business as usual. Loop thinks he is finally getting some answers, but every answer only opens another door to something worse. He is in well over his head almost from the beginning, and the book does a great job of making the reader feel that constant pressure.

Loop is one of the more sympathetic characters in the series so far because, underneath all of his posturing, he does seem to have a conscience. He is not innocent, exactly, and he certainly makes some dumb choices, but he is not naturally cruel. He wants respect, money, and an explanation for why his father left, but he also cares about people in a way that many of the hardened gangsters around him do not. Azzarello does not turn him into a saint, though. Loop is still immature and easily manipulated, which is exactly why his journey through this volume becomes so tragic. He keeps thinking he has found a way to gain control over his life, only to learn that somebody else has already decided the terms.

Agent Graves remains the most fascinating figure in the book. In the early volumes, he could be seen as a mysterious avenger or a kind of grim wish-fulfillment figure, handing victims the tools to get justice on their own terms. This collection makes him feel more unsettling than heroic. Graves is not necessarily lying to Loop, but he is absolutely steering him toward a result that serves some larger purpose. He is a man who sees people as pieces on a board, and even when he gives them a choice, it is hard to believe that he does not already have an idea of how they will respond. The briefcase may offer freedom from prosecution, but it never offers freedom from consequences.

The book also continues expanding the larger mythology involving the Trust and the Minutemen. Azzarello is still not explaining everything, and that can be frustrating if someone wants clean answers right away. At the same time, the lack of full explanation is part of what gives 100 Bullets its pull. The reader gets the sense that every crime boss, stray conversation, and seemingly random killing could matter later. People who initially seem like minor players keep revealing hidden ties to the larger conspiracy. Even the deaths and betrayals carry an extra weight because they do not feel random. This series is building toward something, and by the end of this volume it is clear that Graves has been setting events in motion for a long time.

Eduardo Risso’s artwork continues to be one of the best things about the series. His characters look stylized without ever feeling too cartoonish, and he gives every person a distinct physical presence. You can tell who is dangerous just by the way they stand in a room. You can tell who is nervous by the way they avoid eye contact. Risso’s visual storytelling is especially effective in the bar scenes, street confrontations, and quiet moments when characters are trying to decide whether to trust someone. He knows how to make a room feel crowded, seedy, and tense without overloading the page with unnecessary detail.

Risso also has a great eye for the ugly atmosphere of this world. The bars look worn down, the apartments feel cramped, and the city streets always seem like they are one bad decision away from turning violent. The noir influence is obvious, but it does not feel like a cheap imitation of old detective stories. It feels more like a modern crime story filtered through noir imagery: low lighting, cigarette smoke, suspicious looks, crooked power structures, and people who keep trying to escape the past only to be dragged deeper into it. The coloring helps the art stand out as well, giving the grimy environments and tense confrontations a little extra visual bite without making the book look overly polished.

The ending is what really makes the volume stick. Azzarello does not rely on a giant surprise twist so much as a sense of inevitability. You can see the bad outcome coming, but that does not make it any easier to watch. Loop spends most of the story trying to become somebody who matters, somebody with control and power, and the cruel part is that the criminal world is more than happy to let him feel that way for a little while. By the time reality catches up with him, he has learned that the people offering him opportunity were never offering him a real way out.

100 Bullets Vol. 3: Hang Up on the Hang Low is the strongest collection in the series so far. It has a more focused central story than Split Second Chance, while still pushing the wider conspiracy forward in a meaningful way. Loop is a memorable lead because he is flawed, angry, and trying desperately to look fearless when he is really just lost. Azzarello keeps the dialogue sharp and streetwise, Risso keeps every page visually charged, and the larger story continues to get more dangerous the more we learn about it. This is the point where 100 Bullets stops merely promising that it has a major story to tell and starts delivering on that promise.

100 Bullets Volume Reviews

Guilty Pleasure No. 125: In Death Series (by J.D. Robb)

Posted on July 30, 2026 by Arleigh

If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if you mashed up a gritty police procedural with a futuristic New York City and a slow-burn romance that somehow never gets old, J.D. Robb’s In Death series is your answer. Now 62 books deep and still going strong, this series is a masterclass in how to take well-worn tropes—brilliant but emotionally closed-off detective, deadly serial killers, found family, and a romance that simmers across dozens of books—and make them feel fresh, addictive, and weirdly comforting every single time. It’s the kind of series you can binge like comfort food, but with a side of cybernetic enhancements and murder so creative it’ll make you side-eye your toaster. And yes, it’s absolutely a guilty pleasure—but not because it’s badly written or because Robb has lost her touch. It’s a guilty pleasure like that extra slice of pie you know you shouldn’t have but can’t resist, or buying a lottery ticket despite the astronomical odds. You know it’s not good for you in the grand scheme of things, but dang it, it feels good in the moment.

The series kicks off with Naked in Death, where we meet Lieutenant Eve Dallas, a homicide detective in 2058 New York who’s all sharp edges and zero patience for nonsense. She’s the kind of cop who’d rather work a double shift than talk about her feelings, which is convenient because her past is a landmine of trauma she’d prefer to ignore. Enter Roarke, the Irish billionaire with a shady past, a face that could melt glaciers, long black hair, deep blue sea eyes, and an Irish brogue that could charm the pants off a saint. He’s the billionaire playboy whose dubious criminal past built his legitimate business empire, and he’s the perfect foil to Eve’s law-abiding, no-nonsense demeanor. Their dynamic is the heart of the series and the ultimate embodiment of the “opposites attract” trope. Here you have two diametrically opposed characters—a by-the-book cop and a former criminal turned businessman—who somehow end up being perfect for each other. Their push-and-pull of trust, loyalty, and simmering tension is what makes their relationship so compelling. Robb (a pseudonym for Nora Roberts) takes her time with Eve and Roarke’s romance, letting it develop over the first handful of books in a way that makes their eventual partnership feel earned. And even when they’re officially together, their relationship keeps evolving—through marriage, career shifts, and the occasional murderous ex-lover trying to ruin their day. It’s the kind of slow-burn romance that makes you sigh happily every time they share a quiet moment, even if you know it’s all a little ridiculous.

What’s wild about In Death is how effortlessly it blends its genres while still finding new ways to retell similar stories. The sci-fi elements are often window dressing—hover cars, androids, and off-planet travel exist, but the focus is always on the murders, the investigation, and the people solving (or committing) them. The police procedural side is where the series shines, and Robb’s ability to take familiar setups (a killer targeting a specific demographic, a conspiracy within the police force, a cold case resurfacing) and twist them into something fresh is impressive. You’d think after 60-plus books, the well would run dry, but Robb consistently finds inventive angles, whether it’s the method of murder, the killer’s motive, or the personal stakes for Eve and her team. The supporting cast is a huge part of the charm, too. There’s Delia Peabody, Eve’s former rookie turned trusted partner, whose growth from wide-eyed newbie to seasoned detective is one of the series’ most rewarding arcs. Then there’s Captain Ryan Feeney, the gruff but lovable former cop turned consultant, whose gruff exterior hides a heart of gold (and a love for old-school tech). Even the villains often have depth, with motives that range from tragically relatable to straight-up unhinged.

But let’s talk about the tropes, because In Death has them in spades—and yet, they never feel lazy. Eve and Roarke are the poster children for the “opposites attract” trope, and it works because Robb gives them enough depth and chemistry to make their connection feel real. Eve is the classic “genius detective with a dark past” trope, but Robb gives her enough nuance and growth that she never feels like a caricature. She’s stubborn, yes, but she also learns—slowly—to let people in, to trust her team, and to accept that she doesn’t have to carry the weight of the world alone. Roarke, for his part, could easily have been a one-note “rich love interest” character, but instead, he’s a fully realized partner who respects Eve’s independence while also being unapologetically protective. Their relationship is built on mutual admiration and a shared sense of justice, and it’s refreshing to see a romance in a long-running series that doesn’t devolve into drama for drama’s sake. Even the recurring themes—like Eve’s struggle with her abusive childhood, or the way her job constantly tests her emotional boundaries—are handled with a deft touch that keeps them from feeling repetitive.

The series isn’t without its quirks, though. Some of the later books can feel a bit formulaic, with Eve and her team solving cases in a way that starts to resemble a well-oiled machine. And let’s be real: the number of times Eve gets into physical altercations with suspects who are way bigger and stronger than her, only to come out on top, starts to stretch credibility after a while. But these are minor nitpicks in the grand scheme of things. The real magic of In Death is how it makes you care about these characters, even when the plots start to blur together. There’s a comfort in returning to Eve’s world, where you know you’re going to get a solid mystery, a few laughs, and a healthy dose of heart. The series also does a great job of evolving its characters over time. Peabody’s rise through the ranks, for example, is a slow burn that pays off in satisfying ways, and even side characters like Dr. Morris, the medical examiner, get their moments to shine.

Another standout feature of the series is its ability to balance tone. One minute, you’re knee-deep in a gruesome murder investigation, and the next, you’re laughing at Eve’s sarcastic inner monologue or Roarke’s dry humor. The dialogue is sharp, the banter is frequent, and the chemistry between the characters—both romantic and platonic—keeps the pages turning. And while the sci-fi elements might not be the most hard-hitting or innovative, they serve their purpose: creating a world that feels just different enough from our own to be intriguing, but familiar enough to be relatable. New York in 2058 is still New York, just with more gadgets and a few extra layers of bureaucracy. It’s a world you want to escape into, even if you know it’s all a little indulgent.

At its core, In Death is a series about resilience. Eve’s journey from a traumatized orphan to a woman who’s found love, purpose, and a sense of belonging is the emotional backbone of the series. And while the mysteries are often the driving force of individual books, it’s the characters and their relationships that keep readers coming back. Robb’s ability to weave together sci-fi, police procedural, and romance into a cohesive, engaging whole is no small feat. It’s a testament to her skill as a storyteller that a series this long can still feel so vibrant and alive, even when it leans on familiar tropes. In a genre landscape where so many series fizzle out after a few books, In Death is a rare beast: a long-running saga that manages to stay fresh, fun, and deeply satisfying, book after book. Whether you’re here for the murders, the romance, or the sheer joy of watching Eve Dallas evolve, there’s plenty to love—and plenty more to dive into. And if anyone judges you for binging 10 books in a row? Well, they clearly haven’t experienced the simple joy of curling up with a new In Death novel and letting the rest of the world fade away.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Brad recommends the book BOXED IN – TRAPPED IN 80’S TELEVISION, by Fanacek!

Posted on July 19, 2026 by Bradley Crain

I have about a 35-minute commute to work every day, so I often listen to various podcasts as I’m driving in. There are several that I really enjoy, with “Fanacek” being one of my very favorites. I pretty much always listen to his new episodes on the same day they come out. He’s been talking about the book he’s been working on for quite a while, and it’s finally come out. The name of the book is BOXED IN – TRAPPED IN 80’s TELEVISION, and it’s a monster, coming in at 750 pages. One of the best things I can say is that he’s captured the fun of the podcast in the book, with it being both incredibly funny and informative. I laughed out loud frequently while I was reading it. I also made quite a few notes as the book reminded me of shows I wanted to revisit or shows I may not have ever even heard of. I recommend the book to any person who grew up in the 80’s. There’s a lot of nostalgia here. I also recommend the book to everyone else who just enjoys the history of TV. There’s so much to learn, and Fanacek’s exhaustive research is a great start!

If any of that sounds good to you, just search for BOXED IN – TRAPPED IN 80’s TELEVISION on Amazon. I don’t think there’s any way you’ll be disappointed!

The Adventures of a History Nerd: Candidates ’72

Posted on July 4, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1972! Now, that’s a presidential election that I’m sorry I wasn’t around to witness!

1972, of course, was the year that the Democrats nominated George McGovern and President Richard Nixon went on to win 49 states. McGovern was considered to be one of the most left-wing presidential candidates of all time. He started out as a dark horse but ultimately won the Democratic nomination after the more moderate Edmund Muskie’s campaign turned to be not as strong as people assumed and after Governor George Wallace’s campaign was ended by gunfire in Maryland. (Wallace survived being shot but spent the rest of his life in wheelchair.) McGovern’s campaign knew how to win a primary but had no idea how to win a general election. He ended up getting around 37% of the popular vote. He carried Massachusetts but he lost his home state of South Dakota.

Today, it’s usually assumed that Nixon’s victory was a foregone conclusion but that’s not true. The Republicans had a weak midterm in 1970. The Vietnam War was unpopular. Nixon, himself, had managed to upset both the conservative and the liberal wings of the Republican Party with some of his policies. Much as in 2020, a record number of candidates threw their hat into the ring to take on the incumbent President. 1972 is a great “What if” election. What if the Democrats had nominated Edmund Muskie or Hubert Humphrey? What if the Watergate burglars hadn’t been arrested? What if George McGovern hadn’t picked Thomas Eagleton for Vice President or later asked him to step down as his running mate? Would history be different today?

That’s why I’m glad that I have a copy of Candidates ’72.

Candidates ’72 was published, in 1971, by Congressional Quarterly. It featured profiles of the many men and women who ended up running for President in 1972. It not only detailed their backgrounds and their political stances but it also analyzed their chances of winning their party’s nomination. For a history nerd like me, this book is wonderful because it was written without the benefit of hindsight. It’s a chance to see what people were actually saying about the election of 1972 while it was going on. Often times, it’s quite different from the biased analysis that was written about the election after it had already happened.

The other reason why I like Candidates ’72 is because so many memorable people ran for the Presidency in that year. George McGovern, New York Mayor John Lindsay, U.S. Rep. Shirley Chisholm, Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy, Los Angles Mayor “Mad Sam” Yorty, George Wallace, Dr. Benjamin Spock, they are just some of the candidates profiled here. Reading the profiles really does reveal that America was at a crossroads in the early 70s. Much like today, a lot of people assumed that radicalism was ascendant while failing to consider just how serious the backlash would eventually become. Some of the other Democrats running actually made George McGovern look like a moderate. Meanwhile, on the Republican side, Nixon was challenged by an anti-war congressman named Pete McCloskey. McCloskey eventually lost his house seat in the 80s but briefly reemerged in 2006 as an environmentalist and anti-war activist. He was also a Holocaust denier so let’s be happy that he never got anywhere near the White House.

(It’s probably a sign of just how chaotic the 1972 election was that a few candidates — John Ashbrook, Terry Sanford — did not get profiled in Candidates ’72, presumably because they jumped into the fray after the book went to the presses.)

Here are the candidates and potential candidates who are profiled in Candidates ’72.

Republicans:

Vice President Spiro Agnew of Maryland (elected Vice President in the General Election)
Treasury Secretary John Connally of Texas (declined to run)
Lobbyist John Gardner (declined to run)
U.S. Rep. Pete McCloskey of California (suspended campaign during the primaries)
President Richard M. Nixon of California (won the general election)

Democrats:

U.S. Rep. William Anderson of Tennessee (dropped out before the primaries)
Sen. Birch Bayh of Indiana (dropped out before the primaries)
U.S. Rep. Shirley Chisholm of New York (defeated at the Democratic Convention)
Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark of New York (declined to run)
Sen. Fred Harris of Oklahoma (dropped out before the primaries)
U.S. Sen. Vance Hartke of Indiana (withdrew during the primaries)
Sen. Howard Hughes of Iowa (dropped out before the primaries)
Sen. Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota (defeated at the Democratic Convention)
Sen. Henry Jackson of Washington (defeated at the Democratic Convention)
U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts (declined to run)
New York Mayor John V. Lindsay (withdrew during the primaries)
Lt. Gov. Lester Maddox of Georgia (withdrew during the primaries)
Fmr. Sen. Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota (withdrew during the primaries)
Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota (defeated in the General Election)
U.S. Rep. Wilbur Mills of Arkansas (withdrew during the primaries)
U.S. Rep. Patsy T. Mink of Hawaii (withdrew during the primaries)
U.S. Sen. Walter Mondale of Minnesota (declined to run)
Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine (suspended campaign during the primaries)
Sen. William Proxmire of Wisconsin (dropped out before the primaries)
R. Sargent Shriver of Maryland (nominated for vice president, lost the general election)
Gov. George Wallace of Alabama (suspended campaign after being shot in Maryland)
Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty (withdrew during the primaries)

Independents:

Ralph Nader (declined to run)
Dr. Benjamin Spock (lost the general election)

Ran, but not profiled:

U.S. Rep. John Ashbrook (R-OH)
U.S. Sen. Thomas Eagleton (D-MO, nominated for Vice President but stepped down from the ticket and was replaced by Sargent Shriver)
State Rep. Sissy Farenthold (D-TX, ran for the Vice Presidency at the Democratic Convention)
U.S. Rep. Walter Fauntroy (D-DC)
U.S. Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska (D-Alaska, run for the Vice Presidency at the Democratic Convention)
U.S. Rep. Wayne Hays (D-OH)
Former Governor Endicott Peabody (D-Massachusetts, ran in the nonbinding Vice Presidential primary)
Former Governor Terry Sanford (D-NC)
U.S. Rep. John G. Schmitz (R-CA, ran as the candidate of the American Party)
Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes (D-OH)

I ordered my copy of Candidates ’72 shortly after I ordered Candidates ’76. Sadly, my copy of Candidates ’72 is not in the best condition and I doubt I’ll ever find another copy. As a proud history nerd, though, I’m still happy to have it.