AUTHOR: Jeff Jensen (Illustrations by Jonathon Case)
PUBLISHED: 2011
GENRE: Graphic Novel
I am, in general, not a big fan of books about real people murdering other real people. This story, however, is not a classic narrative but a graphic novel. It was also written by Jeff Jensen, who, up until this book, I had only known as a writer for Entertainment Weekly. It was his job to try and decipher the craziness that was Lost, and he did so with zeal and an unwavering sense that it would all one day come to something coherent. That never happened, but he earned my admiration for trying. The point of telling you all this is that I had only known him for fairly light-hearted, pop culture writing, and was interested to see how he would handle far more sinister material.
The story of the Green River Killer is not very well-known, at least not outside of the Pacific Northwest. From 1982 to 1998, Gary Leon Ridgway killed dozens of women, dumping their bodies in wooded areas often near the Green River. Ridgway was finally arrested in 2001, and received 49 life sentences, for the 49 murders authorities could verify. He confessed, however, to over 70. Because of this difference, Ridgway was offered a plea deal by the King County authorities: his sentence would be commuted to life imprisonment from the death penalty in exchange for his telling detectives where they could find the bodies of these unfound victims. The plea deal remains highly controversial to this day, as Ridgway was either unable or unwilling to lead detectives to many of the women he claimed to have killed.
The Green River Killer, however, is not really the story of Gary Leon Ridgway. It’s the story of Thomas Jensen, who is assigned to the case very early on and is the only detective to stay with the case for the entirety of the 20 years it took to catch Ridgway. He is also Jeff Jensen’s father.
The story begins at the end: Thomas Jensen, since retired, is called back to service to interview Ridgway as part of the plea deal that will spare the killer’s life. From there, the story alternates between Jensen’s years of searching for the killer and the present, where Jensen and his fellow officers follow Ridgway as he leads them to what he claims are the graves of his victims. More often than not, they come up empty.
Jensen’s frustration, past and present, is palpable, especially as he is forced to treat Ridgway with kid gloves. The killer is reluctant to revisit his past deeds – whether this is remorse, embarrassment, or something else is left up to the reader to decide – and often appears confused or sad. Jensen must coach him, cajole him, to get the information he needs, and it takes an obvious toll on the detective. It’s all black and white, but that’s all the artist needs to convey the tiredness of an old detective, worn out by years of investigation and of visiting victims families with nothing new to tell them; the worry of a wife who knows better than to ask how his day was; the resignation of a mother who will never know what’s become of her daughter.
It’s an amazing look inside the case and, most importantly, inside the mind of the detective. Jensen is a good man but the book works because his son resists the urge to make him an unflinching hero. Jensen senior is unsure, flawed, almost obsessed. The Green River Killer is an insider view that could have only been written by someone who loved its hard-working detective. And so it is out of this horrible story that his son finds the perfect way to honor his father.
LENGTH: 240 pages
MAINSTREAM OR NOT: No. Given its subject matter and its medium, most people will expect it to be full of exaggerated, comic book violence.
SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: Yes, if for nothing else for the real emotion behind it all.
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