Murder Mysteries

September 30, 2002
Celebrated comics creators Gaiman (Sandman) and Russell (The Ring of the Nibelung) have teamed up to produce a story of deception and vengeance involving the first betrayal, the first heartbreak and the first crime in God's own city of angels. Raguel is a lost angel, a ragged drifter on the streets of Los Angeles, who tells this story to the narrator, a young Brit stranded on his way back to England. In Raguel's former world, the one in which he had wings, he served as the agent of the Lord's vengeance. When an angel was found murdered, Raguel was assigned to find the killer and his motives. Like an unearthly detective, Raguel questioned his fellow angels until he discovered the murderer and then delivered the Lord's terrible punishment. But upon wreaking God's vengeance, Raguel began to realize it was God himself who set up this murder. Using sharp, crystalline drawings of the eternal city and ribbons of color that suggest creation's simultaneous plasticity and solidity, Russell conveys a bright, illuminated world of purity and divine experimentation. His crisp and vividly rendered drawings capture the haunting sense of loss and isolation Gaiman expresses in this mythic tale of love and jealousy.

November 1, 2002
This is a masterful adaptation by P. Craig Russell of a deep and dark prose short story by Gaiman, known for his wonderful, multiple award-winning Sandman and his recent novel American Gods. The original story can be found in Gaiman's collection Smoke and Mirrors and in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (St. Martin's, 1993). In it, a stranger bums a cigarette off a young man and, in exchange, tells him an ancient story, which makes up the bulk of the book. In the city of the angels, where the universe is being prepared according to the Lord's specifications, one angel is found dead, and Raguel, the Vengeance of the Lord, is sent by Lucifer, Captain of the Host, to investigate. Russell is known for his many fine adaptations of such works as Michael Moorcock's novel Stormbringer (Dark Horse/ Topps). This showcases his marvelous pacing and exquisite artwork, along with Lovern Kindzierski's beautiful coloring. Mature elements make this for older teens and adults. Highly recommended, especially for the many fans of Sandman who want more of Gaiman's thoughtful fantasies.

Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2002
As adapter, Russell does the heavy lifting on this graphic novelization of dark fantasist Gaiman's short story about two possibly connected murder mysteries. The first involved the killing of an angel before the universe was created. The other occurred in the late 1980s or early '90s, when the English narrator was 21 and stuck in L.A. before Christmas. One night there he visited a former lover, who lived with her five-year-old daughter and another woman. There are holes in his memory of the visit, but after it, he met a vagrant and spent the wee hours listening to him tell how the angel of God's vengeance solved the first murder, which he relates as if he were that angel. On the flight home the next day, the young man reads a " Los Angeles Times" story about the murders of two women and a child; the victims' names aren't given. Russell's highly polished mainstream-comics draftsmanship, coloring, and composition fit Gaiman's elegantly ambiguous story just about perfectly.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)