Book Review: Murder Mysteries

Book: Murder Mysteries by Neil Gaiman and illustrations by P. Craig Russell

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: May 27, 2014

Description:

Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell venture into the world of myth and angels in this new edition of their noir-fantasy tale.

Constructing and maintaining all of heaven and earth is an immense task, which God has divided up amongst the various ranks and stations of angels.

As with any huge effort, there are bound to be casualties.

Lights is shed on the lords behind creation as one lonely man in Los Angeles hears the story of one particular unspeakable crime: a murder in Paradise.


Rating: 2 1/2 stars

Review:

This was two stories (or mysteries) in one and was adapted from a short story by Neil Gaiman. This opens with a guy telling readers of a time in his past when he had visited Los Angeles and went to go visit a female friend and her daughter. He was also dealing with a sort of lapse of memory. After returning back from visiting his friend, he ended up meeting an older gentleman. The two sat down on a park bench where the older gentleman started to tell the younger guy a story.

The story was about the murder of an angel and when the older man was in his younger days (and also an angel). He had been instructed to find out who did it. As he investigates, he finds out that it's connected to love and death.  

The story then goes on with the older guy telling his story trying to unravel the mystery and when it's over the reader is shown a rather ambiguous scene with the young man perhaps possible murdering someone but it's left up to the reader to determine. Or someone else murdered them (like the angel) and the younger guy witnessed it, again it's not really clear who actually did it. Because either way the ending still makes no sense when it comes to this story.

The best part of this book was the mystery of the angel being murdered however I found the writing to be flat and boring. And the modern mystery didn't add anything to the story especially when it was so vague. The characters were a little stiff and wooden, they didn't really have much of a personality but perhaps that's the way they were supposed to be.

I thought the artwork was okay, nothing really impressive.

Overall, the story is not as engaging or interesting as it should be because of the boring writing and slightly boring artwork. The only women (the younger guy's friend, her daughter and her friend) in this story were used as props they had no real purpose what so ever. Which is really weird. But anyway, this story could have been so much better.

Although this is a comic book it's is truly Not For Children. It's dark and deals with murder and other topics that are not suited for young readers.