Stefan Petrucha

I've always been interested in the Ripper murders (I'm not a lunatic, I promise) so when I found Ripper for a few bucks I took it and ran. The book follows fourteen year-old Carver Young, a wanna-be detective with a knack for picking locks, as he's forced to leave his home at Ellis Orphanage and adopted by the famous Detective Hawking. Carver is also trying to locate his father after finding a letter from him at Ellis and trying to solve the newest Ripper-style murders.

I absolutely loved show more Ripper, the murderer in the book is obviously made up since no one really knows who Jack the Ripper was but Petrucha made it a fun guessing game as we followed along with Carver. Ripper is a fun and adventurous story with lovely characters including Teddy Roosevelt and an interesting setting in late 1800's New York with the Tombs and Blackwell's Asylum. show less

A bit of a strange adaptation of a comic book story from the 1960s. While the setting has been adapted to the modern day (cell phones, wi-fi, a passing mention of AIDS as a medical consideration, etc.) the dialogue and character development seems like it was taken straight from the pages of a Silver Age comic book. In a 2018 novel it really doesn't seem unreasonable to expect a little more depth, a little more meaningful an arc for some of our key characters.

Review courtesy of All Things Urban Fantasy:
www.allthingsurbanfantasy.blogspot.com

The word "noir" doesn't even begin to capture the dark, gritty world of DEAD MANN WALKING. Hessius Mann is an undead Humphrey Bogart, battered and flawed and wry, and his relationships with the other lost souls in Fort Hammer are poignant moments in this mix of mystery and undeath.

Petrucha's zombies, called "chakz" (mangled Spanish for “jerky”, as their bodies dry out), come back to life with lowered show more IQ’s, memory loss, and bodies that cannot heal beyond what Krazy Glue and stitches can hold together. They struggle not just against the betrayal of their own flesh but an almost complete lack of societal protection. Memory loss makes a chakz’s testimony inadmissible in court, assuming the police ever bother to show up, and chakz communities are under regular attack by roving bands of "livebloods" come to hack up the undead for weekend sport. It's a novel twist to hide in the dark with zombies, afraid of the living coming to kill them, but Petrucha isn't just flipping things around for kicks. The world he writes is grim and sad and heartbreaking, but also darkly compelling and comedic. The practical considerations of being the living dead are fascinating when viewed through the lens of Hessius Mann’s dark humor. Mann deals with the decline of his body with a steady resolve that says less about having hope than about him having already faced the worst the world can offer. What can they do, kill him again?

While not a romance, DEAD MANN WALKING could be considered a love story, a portrait of the best and worst humanity is capable of when faced with a vulnerable population that is mistrusted and reviled. For those who found the political dynamics of Nancy Holzner’s Deadtown series interesting, DEAD MANN WALKING offers a grittier, and in many ways more affecting, world where society struggles to find a place for loved ones returned. The mystery that animates Mann for the whole of this book swept me away, only for the ending to remind me that there is a bigger struggle looming over it all.

Sexual Content: Kissing, references to prostitution, pedophilia, and multiple partner sex. show less

This is the second book in Papercutz' adaptations of Carolyn Keene's Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew. For those not familiar with it, this is a spin-off of the Nancy Drew series intended for younger readers and featuring a third grade Nancy Drew and friends.

In this story, Nancy and her friends are on a field trip to the museum. They are disappointed to hear that the special sand mandala isn't available to see and then they overhear the janitor being fired for messing it up. Nancy is sure it show more wasn't her fault and she and her friends decide to find out what really happened. With the help of the artist, the Venerable Gelek, they discover the truth and learn some new things about Buddhism and sand art.

This is one of those series that, as an adult reader, I have to stop every couple sentences to complain to the squirrels at my window about the flaws but that I purchase for the library because the kids love them. I've never been a fan of any of the Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys spin-offs, especially the younger ones, but I still get kids asking for Clue Crew on occasion. Our copies were random selections from the series and not checking out much, so I decided to clear them off the series shelf and purchase this graphic adaptation instead.

There are some grammatical mistakes, most notably in the placement of commas, and the writing overall is a bit clunky. The art has a strong cartoon style and the perspective is a bit wonky in places, especially in the opening panels where from the text and graphics it sounds/looks like Nancy and her friends are much older than all the other kids in their class.

Ultimately though, those things don't really matter. Because the book gives kids exactly what they want - a funny mystery with familiar characters, a few brief moments of suspense, and cute pictures.

Verdict: Despite the literary flaws, kids will grab these off the shelf, as seen in my already more than decent circulation statistics for the first volume. I'd put these into the category of my tub books (Disney Princess, Barbie, etc.) books that will never win any awards, but kids will enjoy reading them and they'll up my circulation. Also, Papercutz has very affordable hardcovers and I suggest purchasing them in that format.

ISBN: 9781597073769; Published March 2013 by Papercutz; Review copy provided by publisher; Series purchased for the library. show less