Sin City: A Dame to Kill For by Frank Miller.
Title: Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.
Author: Frank Miller.
Genre: Graphic novels, fiction, crime.
Country: U.S.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 1993.
Summary: A second instalment in the Sin City saga. Stuck with nothing but a seedy gumshoe job and some demons, Dwight's thinking of all the ways he's screwed up and what he'd give for one clear chance to wipe the slate clean and dig his way out of the numb gray hell that is his life. And he'd give anything. Just to feel the fire. One more time. But he can't let himself lose control again, can't ever let the monster out. And then Ava calls.
My rating: 8/10
My review:
♥ It's another hot night, dry and windless. The kind that makes people do sweaty, secret things.
♥ Old Town. Where beauty is cheap, provided all you want to do is look.
But if you're ready to pay, you can have anything you can imagine.
I hold tight to the wheel to keep my hands from shaking. I pull out and cut back over the hill. Out. Away.
I put The Game on and pray it will chase away the memories. The damn Old Town memories, of drunken mornings and sweaty sex and stupid, bloody brawls.
You can't just pick and choose. You can't take the good without the bad.
Not once you let the monster out.
♥ "But I must have you first. Tonight. Now, tonight, and never again. If you can't love me--hate me. If you can't forgive me--punish me."
"Okay."
I call her every foul name there is. She makes my name sound like music, like a chant to some dark god. She's slippery with sweat. Before long my hatred's spent but she won't let go. She kisses and coaxes me and the fire grows again. I'm dragged to the round by a jungle cat. She devours me and I thank her for it. We sob and snivel and bawl out loud like a couple of snot-nosed kids. We melt together. The shudder runs through both of us as I scream her name. Ava. Ava! I say all the things I swore I'd never say again. She owns me. Body and soul.
♥ Most people think Marv is crazy, but I don't believe that.
I'm no shrink and I'm not saying I've got Marv all figured out or anything, but "crazy" just doesn't explain him. Not to me. Sometimes I think he's retarded, a big, brutal kid who never learned the ground rules about how people are supposed to act around each other. But that doesn't have the right ring to it either. No, it's more like there's nothing wrong with Marv, nothing at all--except that he had the rotten luck of being born at the wrong time in history. He'd have been okay if he'd been born a couple of thousand years ago. He'd be right at home on some ancient battlefield, swinging an ax into somebody's face. Or in a Roman arena, taking a sword to other gladiators like him.
They'd have tossed him girls like Nancy, back then.
And now all he can do is watch.
So we watch Nancy and we finish off the bottle, letting its liquid darkness fill us both. When I'm sure he's had enough to make him good and dangerous I tell him about Ava and his eyes go killer red. I know he's willing to die for me, if that's what it takes.
The poor slob. I'm using it.
So I'm using him. So what? So he breaks the faces I want him to break instead of somebody else's. So he helps me get Ava back in my arms instead of sleeping it off in a flop-house or gutter or a drunk tank.
His life isn't worth a damn anyway. If I don't get him killed, the world will, one way or another. It has to kill him. It's got no place for him.
The poor slob.
I hate myself.
♥ "Sorry to be such a chatter-box. I can't help myself. This is such a rare opportunity. I almost never get the chance to stop acting--to stop lying. To let somebody see the real me. Maybe it's for the best that Manute didn't show up, after all. It's only right that I get to share this moment with you."
"You're insane!"
"Insane! Ha! That so easy, so convenient--and so wrong. Crazy people push shopping carts down the streets and talk nonsense. Crazy people sit in padded cells and soil their pants. A madwoman couldn't have pulled this off. No. There's a word for what I am, but nobody wants to see the simple truth. If they did, they'd kill people like me as soon as we revealed themselves. But they don't. They close their eyes and blather about psychology and say nobody is truly evil. That's why I've won. That's why I always win."