Dex Parios is a very good private investigator, operating Stumptown Investigations in Portland, Oregon. Unfortunately, she's a very bad gambler and ends up owing the Confederated Tribes of the Wind Coast $17,616. Fortunately, Sue-Lynn, the head of the Confederated Tribes, will waive Dex's debt... if she will find Sue-Lynn's missing granddaughter.
Add in two bad guys named Dill and Whale, one very rich, very powerful, and very connected man, and one easily broken car, shake well, and you get Stumptown.
Stumptown, written by Greg Rucka and published Oni Press, consists of two limited series—Volume 1, The Case of the Girl Who Took Her Shampoo But Left Her Mini (2009), and Volume 2, The Case of the Baby in the Velvet Case (2012)—followed by an ongoing, bimonthly series. So far, the monthly series has featured two arcs. "The Case of the King of Clubs" deals with an assault on a member of the Portland soccer community, while "The Case of a Cup of Joe" has Dex being hired to transport a rare, expensive batch of civet cat coffee.
On February 2019, it was announced that ABC had ordered a series based on the graphic novels, with Cobie Smulders cast as Dex Parios and co-starring Jake Johnson. The series debuted on September 25, 2019 but was canceled after one season.
Tropes used in this work:
- The Alleged Car: Dex has an old Mustang that's in and out of the shop. She finally totals it during "The Case of the Baby in the Velvet Case," by jumping it over a suspension bridge as it's rising, and is rewarded with a much newer model of Mustang... which promptly gets its back bumper sheared off by a random passerby.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished. Averted. Dex spends the majority of the first volume with a rather large black eye.
- Big Brother Instinct Dex is quite protective of her little brother Ansel, who's got Down's Syndrome.
- Blackmail: Dex makes Hector Marenco release Charlotte Suppa in Volume 1 by threatening to reveal evidence about his son's crimes if he doesn't do it.
- Butch Lesbian:
- Tracy Hoffman, Dex's ex-girlfriend, has very short hair and masculine clothing. She's also a soccer player too it turns out.
- CK is a lesbian with her hair in cornrows who's mostly shown wearing cargo pants, hoodies and tank tops while not having her soccer uniform on.
- But Not Too Bi: Dex is a bisexual woman and still friends with her ex-girlfriend Tracy. However, she's never intimate with women, and only has sex with one man.
- The Cartel: Hector Marenco leads MS-13 in the Pacific Northwest, which means he's behind a huge amount of cocaine and meth trafficking.
- Cast Full of Gay: Dex is a bisexual woman, while most of the female characters aside from her are lesbians. Overall, this is at least half the cast.
- Crossover: Dex's client in volume 2, Mim Bracca, is the protagonist of Rucka's novel A Fistful of Rain, which places Stumptown in the same continuity as Rucka's Atticus Kodiak series.
- Da Chief: While he's not her boss, the chief at the local police station hates Dex (because she broke up his marriage), and makes it clear at the top of his voice.
- Determinator: Like a lot of other Greg Rucka female characters, Dex manages to take brutal beatings and still keep going.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": Dex doesn't use her full name Dexedrine and asks other people not to either.
- Embarrassing First Name: Dex's full first name is Dexedrine.
- Embarrassing Middle Name: Dex's middle name is Callisto.
- Football Hooligans: The third volume involves a friend of Dex's getting assaulted after a Portland/Seattle soccer derby, with some of the main suspects being football hooligans supporting one side or the other (which is terrifying to the league, which will tolerate some aggressive chanting but fears that any sign of seriously-violent European or Latin American-style hooliganism will kill the sport dead in the U.S.).
- Full-Name Ultimatum: Dex and Fuji use theirs for each other when getting insistent on something.
- Heteronormative Crusader: In Volume 1 Hector Marenco tells Isabel, his daughter, that her mother would die of shame if she'd lived to know Isabel's seeing another woman, and calls her a deviant.
- In Medias Res: The first issue starts with Dill and Whale shooting Dex and leaving her for dead. We then go 27 hours earlier to find out how she got there.
- Lesbian Jock: Dex is a bisexual woman and Tracy's a lesbian. They're ex-girlfriends and play on the same soccer team as well. A player on the opposing team, CK, is also a lesbian.
- Lingerie Scene:
- In Volume 1 Dex is shown at length with her shirt off showing her bra at the hospital while a doctor treats her.
- During Volume 3 Dex is also shown in her bra when changing shirts or putting them on.
- Lipstick Lesbian: In Volume 1 Isabel Marenco and Charlotte Suppa turn out to be girlfriends. Both are feminine overall, with long hair and stylish clothes (Isabel's especially, as she's a Mafia Princess).
- Mafia Princess: Isabel Marenco's father is a powerful gang leader. As a result she lives in luxury and goes on regular shopping trips.
- Meaningful Name: Dex's full first name is Dexedrine, which is also one of the trade names for dextroamphetamine, a central nervous system stimulant used as an athletic performance enhancer, and by military and special forces as a go-to pill during fatigue-inducing missions, such as those done on night time or extended combat operations. So, it's appropiate for it to be the name of a character like Dex who never gives up, no matter what.
- Ms. Fanservice: In Volume 1 Isabel Marenco is a beautiful young woman who's shown wearing very revealing tops without bras for most of her page time.
- Native American Casino: In Volume 1 Dex gets deep into debt with the local Indian casino.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Dex's full name, Dexedrine, is only mentioned a couple times.
- Parental Abandonment: Dex's parents took off and left her little brother Ansel when she was overseas with the Marines in Afghanistan.
- Parental Substitute: Dex has raised her little brother Ansel after their parents abandoned him.
- Pistol-Whipping: Isabel Marenco hits Dex in the back of the head with her pistol's butt in Volume 1.
- The Place: "Stumptown" is one of the nicknames for the city of Portland, Oregon, where the story is set.
- Punch! Punch! Punch! Uh Oh...: In Stumptown #4, Dex punches a large thug named Whale, to no effect. She seems to lampshade the futility of it afterwards:Dex: Sorry, but I had to try, you understand.
- Queer Establishing Moment:
- In Volume 1 Dex is established as a bisexual woman by showing attraction to men but also having an ex-girlfriend, Tracy. Later Isabel and Charlotte turn out to be girlfriends.
- In Volume 2 Dex mentions early on that Mim had dated Tracy.
- Volume 3 introduces CK, a butch young woman whom Dex suggests Tracy should ask out, showing her to be a lesbian.
- Scenery Censor: Jimmy's naked after having sex with Dex, but hidden behind a counter from the waist down.
- Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: The second volume opens with Dex being offered an excellent detective job, without significant risk and with high pay, which she turns down when she learns that the owner of the company is the crime lord she tangled with in the first volume. She would love the money and the work, but she refuses to have any association.
- Sexy Discretion Shot: Dex comes on to Jimmy, and then the scene cuts to later with him lying asleep naked on her bed as she gets dressed.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Dex is a former Marine who has PTSD from her time in Afghanistan and Iraq.
- Shown Their Work: Almost everything about Portland is correct (especially since Greg Rucka lives there). Rucka basically lives and breathes this trope.
- Tattooed Crook: In Volume 3 two MS-13 members running a scalping ring have many tattoos on their arms, faces and torsos. Dex could tell by their ink that both are high up in the gang.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Captain Poe in Volume 3 is incredulous that Dex's parents would name her Dexedrine Cassiopa, and says that must have been a burden. She agrees it was.
- Work Off the Debt: In Volume 1 Dex gets into debt with the Native American Casino for thousands of dollars after losing big. Sue-Lynne Suppa forgives the debt in return for finding her missing granddaughter. Charlotte.