A gripping and well-crafted tale of prisoners and guards.
In this graphic novel, a group of prison guards attempts a heist against the backdrop of the March on Washington.
Baltimore’s Jessup Penitentiary, 1963. A former prison guard finds himself an inmate, and he has a story to tell. Kendrick Robinson was part of a family of prison guards, including his uncle Marcus and his cousin Francis—called Freckles for his light complexion. When one of their fellow guards is injured, Francis suggests they attempt to steal the score of mouthy former hit man Sid Scisiani, who is about to get paroled. Kendrick warms to the idea after learning he’s been drafted for the Vietnam War—he needs the cash to flee to Canada or buy a new identity. When Sid gets out, Kendrick and Francis follow him to his homecoming job—and learn that his first mission back is to assassinate the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Now Kendrick and his comrades need to plan a heist and save the celebrated civil rights leader at the same time. Meanwhile, back at the prison, a group of prisoners has escaped, including one White supremacist who would like nothing more than to settle a score with his Black prison guards. With the help of artists Oliveira and Dunbar—whose work evokes the bleak superhero comics of the 1980s—Walker spins a cinematic story that propels readers from panel to panel. “People in prison love to talk,” begins Kendrick in a nonchalant opening monologue right out of a Martin Scorsese movie. The words drift incongruously over scenes of inmates fighting and rioting: “There’s nothing more popular...given the other options....Just ask for an opinion...and cons will come running.” The book blends issues of race, civil rights, and prison reform in a way that is cogent while still providing an entertaining, guns-blazing crime story. The tale questions what sorts of behavior count as ethical while driving at a larger, societal morality embodied by the words of the very man whose assassination Kendrick is trying to prevent. Despite the darkness, the story manages to find its way to an ending of hopefulness—though not quite in the way readers will expect.
A gripping and well-crafted tale of prisoners and guards.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-71914-473-5
Page Count: 153
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A weird, wild ride.
Celebrity scandal and a haunted lake drive the narrative in this bestselling author’s latest serving of subtly ironic suspense.
Sager’s debut, Final Girls (2017), was fun and beautifully crafted. His most recent novels—Home Before Dark (2020) and Survive the Night (2021) —have been fun and a bit rickety. His new novel fits that mold. Narrator Casey Fletcher grew up watching her mother dazzle audiences, and then she became an actor herself. While she never achieves the “America’s sweetheart” status her mother enjoyed, Casey makes a career out of bit parts in movies and on TV and meatier parts onstage. Then the death of her husband sends her into an alcoholic spiral that ends with her getting fired from a Broadway play. When paparazzi document her substance abuse, her mother exiles her to the family retreat in Vermont. Casey has a dry, droll perspective that persists until circumstances overwhelm her, and if you’re getting a Carrie Fisher vibe from Casey Fletcher, that is almost certainly not an accident. Once in Vermont, she passes the time drinking bourbon and watching the former supermodel and the tech mogul who live across the lake through a pair of binoculars. Casey befriends Katherine Royce after rescuing her when she almost drowns and soon concludes that all is not well in Katherine and Tom’s marriage. Then Katherine disappears….It would be unfair to say too much about what happens next, but creepy coincidences start piling up, and eventually, Casey has to face the possibility that maybe some of the eerie legends about Lake Greene might have some truth to them. Sager certainly delivers a lot of twists, and he ventures into what is, for him, new territory. Are there some things that don’t quite add up at the end? Maybe, but asking that question does nothing but spoil a highly entertaining read.
A weird, wild ride.Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-18319-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
As an adjunct member says, “You’re not a family, you’re a force.” Exactly, though not in the way you’d expect.
The ne’er-do-well son of a successful Irish American family gets dragged into criminal complications that suggest the rest of the Devlins aren’t exactly the upstanding citizens they appear.
The first 35 years in the life of Thomas “TJ” Devlin have been one disappointment after another to his parents, lawyers who founded a prosperous insurance and reinsurance firm, and his more successful siblings, John and Gabby. A longtime alcoholic who’s been unemployable ever since he did time for an incident involving his ex-girlfriend Carrie’s then 2-year-old daughter, TJ is nominally an investigator for Devlin & Devlin, but everyone knows the post is a sinecure. Things change dramatically when golden-boy John tells TJ that he just killed Neil Lemaire, an accountant for D&D client Runstan Electronics. Their speedy return to the murder scene reveals no corpse, so the brothers breathe easier—until Lemaire turns up shot to death in his car. John’s way of avoiding anything that might jeopardize his status as heir apparent to D&D is to throw TJ under the bus, blaming him for everything John himself has done and adding that you can’t trust anything his brother has said since he’s fallen off the wagon. TJ, who’s maintained his sobriety a day at a time for nearly two years, feels outraged, but neither the police investigating the murder nor his nearest and dearest care about his feelings. Forget the forgettable mystery, whose solution will leave you shrugging instead of gasping, and focus on the circular firing squad of the Devlins, and you’ll have a much better time than TJ.
As an adjunct member says, “You’re not a family, you’re a force.” Exactly, though not in the way you’d expect.Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9780525539704
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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