A classic crime story with lively twists and engaging illustrations.
A gangster returns home to England to save his niece in Thomas’ graphic novel crime saga.
Late at night on the streets of Brighton, England, a young woman named Grace is attacked by an unknown assailant, who’s directed to do so by an older man in a car. She’s quite familiar with her city’s seedy underworld, and she lands some good blows against the driver but is eventually abducted. Grace has been dating Ian Woods, the son of local crime kingpin Harry Woods; Grace’s uncle, John Bannan, had dealings with the Woods that forced him out of town years earlier. Now he’s back and ready to settle old scores, and with the help of his longtime friend, Matty, he starts brawling his way through the city. Back at the Woods’ camp, no one is happy to see John’s sudden reappearance; his arrival on the scene coincides with the Woods’ dangerous deal with a group of Albanian sex smugglers, which is threatening their empire. It isn’t long before John and Matty get pulled into the fray. Thomas’ sharp writing offers plenty of suspense, while also layering in rich history. Every character hints at deeper stories and festering betrayals, which makes this graphic novel feel realistic and gritty. Characters speak in the hard-boiled manner that one expects from a pulp-inspired story: “I never wanted to be a bastard. it’s just all I’ve ever been good at,” John narrates early on. Secondary characters keep the narrative fresh, and Matthews’ retro illustrations fit the tone perfectly; his clever use of blue, orange, and black hues give even expositional scenes a sense of cinematic movement and scope. The ending feels a bit rushed as it ties all the different plot threads together, but there’s at least one great surprise that readers may not see coming, and plenty of exciting action sequences throughout.
A classic crime story with lively twists and engaging illustrations.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781545815915
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Mad Cave Studios
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Immensely enjoyable.
The debut graphic novel from Mohamed presents a modern Egypt full of magical realism where wishes have been industrialized and heavily regulated.
The story opens with a televised public service announcement from the General Committee of Wish Supervision and Licensing about the dangers of “third-class wishes”—wishes that come in soda cans and tend to backfire on wishers who aren’t specific enough (like a wish to lose weight resulting in limbs falling from the wisher’s body). Thus begins a brilliant play among magic, the mundane, and bureaucracy that centers around a newsstand kiosk where a devout Muslim is trying to unload the three “first-class wishes” (contained in elegant glass bottles and properly licensed by the government) that have come into his possession, since he believes his religion forbids him to use them. As he gradually unloads the first-class wishes on a poor, regretful widow (who then runs afoul of authorities determined to manipulate her out of her valuable commodity) and a university student who seeks a possibly magical solution to their mental health crisis (but struggles with whether a wish to always be happy might have unintended consequences), interstitials give infographic histories of wishes, showing how the Western wish-industrial complex has exploited the countries where wishes are mined (largely in the Middle East). The book is exceptionally imaginative while also being wonderfully grounded in touching human relationships, existential quandaries, and familiar geopolitical and socio-economic dynamics. Mohamed’s art balances perfectly between cartoon and realism, powerfully conveying emotions, and her strong, clean lines gorgeously depict everything from an anguished face to an ornate bottle. Charts and graphs nicely break up the reading experience while also concisely building this larger world of everyday wishes. Mohamed has a great sense of humor, which comes out in footnotes and casual asides throughout.
Immensely enjoyable.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-524-74841-8
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Gorgeous and troubling.
Cartoonist Kuper (Kafkaesque, 2018, etc.) delivers a graphic-novel adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s literary classic exploring the horror at the center of colonial exploitation.
As a group of sailors floats on the River Thames in 1899, a particularly adventurous member notes that England was once “one of the dark places of the earth,” referring to the land before the arrival of the Romans. This well-connected vagabond then regales his friends with his boyhood obsession with the blank places on maps, which eventually led him to captain a steamboat up a great African river under the employ of a corporate empire dedicated to ripping the riches from foreign land. Marlow’s trip to what was known as the Dark Continent exposes him to the frustrations of bureaucracy, the inhumanity employed by Europeans on the local population, and the insanity plaguing those committed to turning a profit. In his introduction, Kuper outlines his approach to the original book, which featured extensive use of the n-word and worked from a general worldview that European males are the forgers of civilization (even if they suffered a “soul [that] had gone mad” for their efforts), explaining that “by choosing a different point of view to illustrate, otherwise faceless and undefined characters were brought to the fore without altering Conrad’s text.” There is a moment when a scene of indiscriminate shelling reveals the Africans fleeing, and there are some places where the positioning of the Africans within the panel gives them more prominence, but without new text added to fully frame the local people, it’s hard to feel that they have reached equal footing. Still, Kuper’s work admirably deletes the most offensive of Conrad’s language while presenting graphically the struggle of the native population in the face of foreign exploitation. Kuper is a master cartoonist, and his pages and panels are a feast for the eyes.
Gorgeous and troubling.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-393-63564-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
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