Secret Identity

A Novel

By: Alex Segura

Narrated by: Aida Reluzco

This program features original sound design.

From Anthony Award-winning writer Alex Segura comes Secret Identity, a rollicking literary mystery set in the world of comic books.

It’s 1975, and the comic book industry is struggling, but Carmen Valdez doesn’t care. She’s an assistant at Triumph Comics, which doesn’t have the creative zeal of Marvel nor the buttoned-up efficiency of DC, but it doesn’t matter. Carmen is tantalizingly close to fulfilling her dream of writing a superhero book.

That dream is nearly a reality when one of the Triumph writers enlists her help to create a new character, which they call “The Lethal Lynx”, Triumph's first female hero. But her colleague is acting strangely and asking to keep her involvement a secret. And then he’s found dead, with all of their scripts turned into the publisher without her name. Carmen is desperate to piece together what happened to him, to hang on to her piece of the Lynx, which turns out to be a runaway hit. But that’s complicated by a surprise visitor from her home in Miami, a tenacious cop who is piecing everything together too quickly for Carmen, and the tangled web of secrets and resentments among the passionate eccentrics who write comics for a living.

Alex Segura uses his expertise as a comics creator as well as his unabashed love of noir fiction to create a truly one-of-a-kind novel - hard-edged and bright-eyed, gritty and dangerous, and utterly absorbing.

©2022 Alex Segura (P)2022 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

2022, Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year, Long-listed

2022, NPR Best Book of the Year, Long-listed

really Enjoyed!!

while I have never felt a passion for graphic novels myself, I have always admired the passion of others for any artform. this was a great story. Well read. I enjoyed it very much.

A Unique Mystery with a Lot to Love

Secret Identity is a good book that you should read. That being said, I do have notes.

The book gets to a rolling start. We get a lot of backstory that would have helped the pacing had we not been treated to it.

Carmen, our protagonist, has been an assistant for a Comics publisher for a year and is outraged that her boss won’t hire her as a writer. After a year! However, we quickly deduce that she’s an Ayn Randian savant who doesn’t need experience as a writer, as her superpower is writing comics. However, she’s not super street smart, later displaying questionable judgment at times to serve the plot. I found myself getting irritated that she wasn't making stronger choices. For example, the premise of the story is that because her boss at a Comics publisher won't accept Carmen as a writer, she agrees to be a silent writing partner with a more established but less talented guy. She'll just have to trust that when the time comes, he'll do right by her and reveal her contribution. They put nothing in writing. They don't go to a lawyer. They don't share this partnership with a mutual acquaintance. There are so many obvious ways a writer might protect her authorship -- even in the 1970's. Taking no steps to do so is an avoidable and easily foreseen bad decision that predictably has massive consequences to later events. Further, Harvey has a reputation for being shady. You see kind of where this is going. Now, if Carmen was the type of protagonist who, at the outset, was filled with lots of exuberance and youthful optimism- if Harvey had been presented as a guy who, by all appearances, seemed like a genuine friend and man of integrity, lack of a written agreement would be understandable if unwise. As a reader, the need to do so might not even occur to us. But contrary to being a trusting or even agreeable soul, even being relatively new to New York, Carmen is an acutely suspicious person--already savvy and jaded to the ways of the comic book industry and the people within it. Her trust of Harvey is threadbare at best--so it's baffling she puts her authorship entirely at his mercy.

Once we get past the protracted setup and backstory, Secret Identity starts to cook. Some of the secrets Carmen keeps seem, again, to serve the writer's convenience more than any internal logic or rationale, but it's a fun read.

Great noir adventure set in the world of comic books!

Loved the characters, the motives, the tension, and the comic history peppered in! Definitely give it a listen if you grew up with comic books, love the medium, and accept the flaws within them.

This was written for me! ❤

There is nothing generic or forgettable about Secret Identity. This is just the kind of mystery book that I love - the kind where the mystery is only part of the story. There is a whole world here. The characters exist outside of the crime. Carmen is an excellent protagonist, and she's very convincing. I’ve read about ten mystery books this year, and she is my favorite crime solver. Segura did a great job with all the characters. Even characters that are involved in shady business are empathetic.

There is so much flavor here. This is a slow-burn noir with social commentary, and the main character has a troubled past. As a Cuban-American, I loved all the cultural references. I’m not used to any cultural representation in the types of books I prefer, so that was pretty cool. As someone who grew up loving superheroes before they went mainstream, this was such a treat. The historical aspects took me down a rabbit hole, and I was googling a lot about the comic book industry after finishing the book.

I enjoy stories within stories when they’re done well, so I was thrilled with every scene of the Lynx. The actual comic book pages in the ebook looked fantastic, and the audiobook did such a great job in differentiating the comic book from the rest of the narrative. I listened to the entire audiobook before even looking at the ebook, and I was never confused. The narrator was outstanding and really made the story come to life.

I loved Secret Identity. It’s like this was written for me. This was a credit well spent.

Captivating

The audiobook was really special as the comic parts had real city noises, etc.

Some small twists and a satisfying ending. Really fun to listen to.