Early Graphic Novel Review – Murder Mysteries by Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell (3.5/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Graphic Novel/Fantasy/Mystery
Length: 112 pages
Publisher: Dark Horse
Release Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN-13: 978-1616553302
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: eGalley from NetGalley.com
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
I got a copy of this book to review in e-book format from NetGalley. Thanks to Netgalley and Dark Horse for the chance to read this book. I am a huge Gaiman fan and was excited to read something new by him. While this definitely wasn’t the strongest book I have read by him, it was decent and made you think.
This was an interesting and somewhat ambiguous tale about a man who loses time and ends up with the story of an angel of vengeance. Little does he know that he may have been the one the angel was seeking vengeance on and his blank times may not be as blank as he thinks.
This is one of those stories where you aren’t quite sure what is going on. For the first part of the story you are following around a young man who is visiting an old friend. The young man has blank spots where he can’t remember how he got places. He finds himself on a bench with an older man who wants to tell him a story. What follows is the story of the angel of vengeance created to find out who committed a murder in Heaven.
The whole thing is cleverly done and has that whole story in a story thing going on. There is a wonderful twist at the end, that is fairly predictable but still darkly ironic. I enjoyed the dark irony to the story.
The actual story portion of this was very brief maybe 70 pages, the rest was all the extras. There is a very detailed appendix where the authors talk about transitioning this from a radioplay to a graphic novel. There is also a section of sketches.
I thought the illustration was just so so. Some frames are beautifully illustrated, while others lacked detail. Many of the illustrations were lacking in facial detail. I wish that the flights of angels had actually been illustrated rather than shown as rectangular blocks in the distance. The illustration is very similar in style to the Sandman books, but I found it to be not quite as detailed and refined.
Overall this was a decent read. I enjoyed the irony behind the story and love the whole idea of stories in stories. It is a dark story with language and sex, so for adults only. The illustration was only so-so however, and the story portion was very short. Definitely not the best Gaiman graphic novel I have read, but interesting.
This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Ebook Reading Challenge
– Graphic Novel Reading Challenge
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
– 100 Books in a Year Reading Challenge
