Whiteout Compendium

At the edge of the world, in the most inhospitable place mankind has ever tried to inhabit, Carrie Stetko is a U.S. Marshal, the only law enforcement officer on the continent. Running from her own demons and hoping to freeze them out, Carrie instead finds herself trying to solve an Antarctic murder. But in a place where survival trumps everything else, what will succumb to the cold first: Carrie’s resolve or the murderer’s willingness to kill again?

Whiteout Compendium collects both the original Whiteout (summarized above) and Whiteout: Melt, a spinoff story that revisits Carrie’s storyline with the added wrinkle of Antarctic political intrigue. Rucka and Lieber have crafted a unique masterpiece here — a graphic novel where noir black is replaced with a snowy white that becomes even more suffocating.

Wickedly intense, wonderfully plotted, and populated with flawed, engaging, multi-dimensional characters, Whiteout subverts classic tropes as often as it exemplifies them. Whiteout: Melt is more of a character piece and somewhat suffers from living in the shadow of the original, but both are very much worth your time.