Damn, but this was breathtaking. The story, the art, the attention to detail...just...wow.

Weaving a fictional story out of facts, this is a strangely heartwarming story of a boy whose father happens to be the Archangel of Death for the Looney mob. There's often an attempt by authors to imbue their hitmen with a sense of honour or a strong morale code. Think The Boondock Saints, for example. But rarely does it get pulled off.

Here, it does. This was 300 glorious pages of action and empathy, of family and honour.

If I have one complaint, it's that, at times, the same piece of reference art was used too often. There's a particular pose of Michael O'Sullivan's father, for example, that had to have been used at least five or six different times. The exact same facial expression.

But it's a minor quibble. This story is a thing of beauty. ( )

gunman betrayed by Looney mob sets out on trail of vengence with surviving son

See my blog post on it here:

http://gypsylibrarian.blogspot.com/2006/02/booknote-road-to-perdition.html ( )

I am torn between three and four stars with this graphic novel. I was looking for a graphic novel for this year's reading challenge & my husband casually gave me The Road to Perdition. He had enjoyed it & thought I might. I am so glad he suggested it.
A young boy is stunned when he witnesses his father commit murder. In his youthful eyes, his father is the perfect dad. To learn what his father is capable of makes him grow up pretty fast.
I sped through the story once I had time to actually sit and read it.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the artwork. I wish I had artistic talent. My favorite was seeing how buildings were reflected in the boy's face as they rode from city to city. AMAZING. ( )

Boy finds out his dad is a gangster, the Bad Gangsters kill his mum and his brother, so boy and his dad drive around having gangster adventures and trying to get revenge, in 1930's America with mafias and prohibition etc. Fun, if you like pages of beautifully drawn men shooting each other, but not really my thing. Most interesting for the character of the boy's father, who is a hardened killer, but portrayed sympathetically by being a family man, being a man of his word, being insanely competent, avoiding civilian casualties (although not redshirts, they can all die), and lighting candles and saying confession. ( )