Judge Dredd by Al Ewing, Matt Smith and Michael Carroll

I was mostly familiar with the character of Judge Dredd from his movie incarnations. Judge Dredd: Year One is a chance to get to know the famous character depicted in his early years; fresh from the academy and filled with the core of the man he would become but little of the experience. Year One is a collection of three stories that highlight the career of young Judge Joe Dredd.

In “City Fathers” Dredd must solve the murder of a government informant and stop a dangerous product from hitting the black market before the whole city is threatened. Dredd follows the trail of clues pointing to a bigger crime, and a more obscure motive for the informant’s murder. An interesting story, but much of the mystery is revealed through one suspect handing out a large and fortuitous amount of exposition.

“Cold Light of Day” is the best and most exciting of the three stories. A killing spree includes the deaths of two judges and fingers are pointing at a decision made by Cadet Joe Dredd five years earlier. The story alternates between the two timelines, when Dredd and other cadets were on a training mission outside the city. That mission ultimately led to the conviction of the man suspected of the murder of the judges in the present. The investigation in the present is further complicated by a huge race which occupies much of the city and draws most of the cities residents out to watch. Both timelines are interesting and integral to the story and the time spend in each one, as well as time spent covering the race itself are all exciting.

“Wear Iron” is the last story and it is largely a high stakes heist tale. It is distinctive in that it largely focuses on Joe’s more morally flexible clone/brother Rico. A down on his luck criminal looking for one last big score gets blackmailed into setting up an inventive robbery. It’s up to straight arrow Joe Dredd to sniff it out and put a stop to it.

As with any story collection, there are stronger and weaker entries. “Cold Light of Day” by itself makes the book worth it. As a whole, it is interesting getting to see Dredd’s more formative years, as well as get some insight into his relationship with his brother, who pops up in all three stories.

Jordan Howard does a great job with the narration capturing the gruffness of Dredd and conveying his character through tone of voice. Howard gives distinctive voices to the other characters that inhabit the story as well, making it easy to follow. The comic book origins of the story give everything a slightly larger than life and fantastic feel to them. This type of story translates really well into audio format and makes the audiobook a great way to experience the story. Great for Judge Dredd fans.

I was provided a copy of this audiobook by the publisher.

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