Hellcity: The Whole Damn Thing

Crime noir, grotesque horror, and pitch-black comedy collide when a detective in the capital city of Hell discovers a scandal that threatens the Devil's supremacy and ignites a human/demon race war.

From Publishers Weekly

Bill Tankersley lives in hell--literally. Damned for killing himself after a serial killer gunned down his wife, Bill spends his days in Hellcity working in a bacon cookery and attending remorse sessions in which he relives his sins with a diabolical social worker. When a beautiful female demon from Lucifer's executive branch asks him to investigate the devil's mysterious disappearances and personality shifts, Bill refuses... until he learns he really doesn't have a choice. While in-fighting and coup plots ripple through Lucifer's cabinet, a human anarchist group is attacking police demons downtown, and somehow all this centers on Bill's wife, who runs an orphanage in Heaventown. A playful and smart homage to city life and Chandler-style noir, the story sometimes gropes for a focus; it's difficult to know who to root for. Flood's artwork is sleek and elegant when Bill meets the demon who will lead him into her world of politics and power, then ragged and bold when he fights for his life in the chaos of lower Hellcity. Blair's wry humor is just right for a story that depends on mythological and religious allusion for its power, yet cannot take itself completely seriously. Illus. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Ex-detective Bill Tankersly has a new gig, as a cook at the Piggery. The Piggery isn’t a fancy restaurant with a funny name, though; it’s a hole-in-the-wall . . . in hell. (You really don’t want to know about the pigs.) The job and never-ending therapy sessions are his sentence for killing himself. But the long-legged—and bat-winged—Mary D’Metre wants Bill to shadow her supervisor. Lou, boss of Hellcity, has been drinking, showing up late, and reading poetry at press conferences. He just doesn’t seem evil anymore, and without his strong claw at the helm, hell seems ready to descend into chaos. Bill soon finds himself in the middle of a demonic mutiny, a human rebellion, and the devil’s surprising secret life. Fans of Hellcity, v.1 (2006), can finally read the rest of the story, which has languished in publishing limbo until now. Blair’s story is over the top yet dramatically satisfying, and Flood’s black-and-white drawings are boldly kinetic. Together, their vision of hell is sly and surprising—rarely have the tortures of the damned been so entertainingly evoked. --Keir Graff

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