Sin City #4 – That Yellow Bastard

That Yellow Bastard is the fourth book in Frank Miller’s Sin City series. The book follows the last good cop in Sin City and begins with his last day on the force before he takes early retirement.

John Hartigan is investigating a series of kidnappings which he suspects Roark Junior is behind. He follows a lead to the docks where he finds 11 year old Nancy Callahan just in time. That’s probably the best break Nancy and Hartigan in the whole book and it goes pretty much down hill from there.

This is easily the darker of the first four books in the series. Where Marv and Dwight had help in the previous books and even when against all odds they still had back-up. In volume 4 Hartigan and Nancy are very much on there own without a plan. Everybody from the cops to family who should be helping them are all set for turning a blind eye to what’s going on and covering up the horrors of the Roark family.

Another thing that makes That Yellow Bastard different to the previous books is the use of yellow on the pages to really highlight the deformed body of Roark Jr.

This story also has the same ongoing theme between the books with the different types of relationships between characters. Everything is a love triangle in Sin City and it always ends bad. In The Hard Goodbye Marv loved Goldie, Goldie dies. In Dame to Kill for Dwight loves Eva, Eva Dies, Nancy Loves Hartigan and Hartigan dies.

Again it comes highly recommended especially while the books are being reprinted.

Posted by Adi Mursec on November 14, 2010