Friday, October 11, 2013

Book Review: Return to Perdition by Max Allan Collins

My rating: 2/5

From Amazon: "The time is America in the early 1970’s and our third generation hero, Michael Satariano, Jr. is a Vietnam vet recently returned to the States. He doesn’t know that his father’s real name was Michael O’Sullivan, and is unaware of the conflict between his dad, his grandfather and John Looney – the criminal godfather of Rock Island, Illinois. But when he’s recruited by the Mob as a hit-man, he’s going to learn the hard way that you can never outrun (or outgun) your past."

Color me immensely disappointed.  Though I really enjoyed the first two, this fifth installment of the Road to Perdition graphic novel series felt unedited and possibly rushed (similar to the first one, but much worse; Michael's girlfriend calls him by her uncle's name at one point for goodness sake, and it's not the character's mistake). There was nothing very unique about the story, though I was surprised by something near the end and probably shouldn't have been, and I did appreciate that fact. Some parts were rushed through in only a few frames when they should have been much more detailed, and other parts dragged on. I admit I got bored but did finish it, since it isn't terribly long. Some sections appeared to be an excuse to draw naked women, which can be fine if there's a good story to go with it; but when there's not, it comes across as a 13-year-old's pornographic fantasy. Having this one take place in the '70s would have been fine too, even though I really liked the Prohibition-era setting of the first two; but all this felt like was a watered-down version of a '70s gangster film.

The artwork wasn't badly done, and I did appreciate the part that surprised me, so I at least gave it two stars.  This book doesn't lessen my love for the second book of the series or the movie based on the first, but I have no desire to go back and read numbers 3 and 4 (Road to Purgatory and Road to Paradise).

No comments:

Post a Comment

Let me know what you think!