Deadliest Bouquet #3 // Review
The three sisters have left the police station. They’ve got a lot to think about. They’ve got a lot to worry about as well. There are questions of the past that need to be dealt with. The mystery deepens in The Deadliest Bouquet #3. Writer Erica Schultz continues an enjoyable story of interpersonal intrigue and danger. Artist Carola Borelli moves the action across the page with a brisk sense of motion and drama. Gab Contreras’s colors lend mood and depth to another satisfying issue. Schultz and company keep the story moving in a slick and tightly-woven crime thriller.
The police know their mother’s gun was connected with a murder in 1978. Good thing the police don’t know that it was their mother’s gun. They only know it as the gun that killed their mother. The police don’t know where it is, so they’re going to have to get rid of it. It’s a complicated life. Poppy’s husband, Derek, doesn’t know any of this. He’s beginning to suspect something, though. She and her sisters nearly beat the hell out of him when they thought he was breaking into their late mother’s home. Things are only going to get more complicated.
Schultz is carefully orchestrating all of the elements of a rather large ensemble of characters. There is a wide range of different personalities between the three sisters and the rest of the characters surrounding them. The story could run in quite a few different directions. Rather than rushing ahead with a story that could be driven by cliffhangers from issue to issue, Schultz is taking it easy and allowing the reader to get acquainted with the characters and really develop a connection with them, which is a respectably sophisticated approach to this sort of story.
Borelli plays it fast and loose with the details in the frame. The overarching sense of drama and emotion are well-placed on the page as every character has a very distinct approach to the stresses and conflicts that are entering the story. The layout of the action has some casually inventive moments. The heart of the issue has the three sisters quietly approaching their late mother’s home...communicating nonverbally. There aren’t a whole lot of artists who could bring across nonverbal communication quite as well as Borelli does. Contreras wisely moves the color away from realistic shades of background without clashing painfully against the mood of the mystery.
The serial has a lot of options open to it as it reaches beyond its third issue. With so many moving parts, there are a lot of places where the story might snag. Flaws may eventually start to fade in around the edges of the story, but Schultz has everything laid out really well. Borelli’s understanding of page composition follows Schultz’s elegantly poised storytelling with a sharp awareness of movement and composition. The series reaches the end of its third chapter with every bit as much of a sense of intrigue as it did at the end of its first.
