How To Make A Petty Sinner Fascinating: On Sara Ryan & Carla Speed McNeil's "Bad Houses"
What might Sara Ryan & Carla Speed McNeil's Bad Houses have to teach the makers of a typical action/adventure potboiler? Despite a few thrown punches, a sprinkling of martial arts poses and a jeopardy-packed climax, Bad Houses is no way a heroic melodrama. What it does offer, amongst its considerable virtues, is a textbook-worthy example of how to introduce a character that is, on first impressions at least, wonderfully, captivatingly loathsome. As dozens of superhero movies will attest, it's far, far harder to create a compelling villain than it is a sympathetic, virtuous protagonists. But in the first appearance in Bad Houses of the seemingly irredeemable Fred Peck, Ryan and McNeil spell out several ways in which an apparently unpalatable and largely humourless antagonist can be made utterly fascinating. As the pages progress, Peck will be poignantly shown to be anything other than a one-dimensional moustache-twirler. But even given how the reader will leave him at