On This Page
Description
It's 1942 and - from the Atlantic to the Pacific - the world is torn apart. Ten years ago Michael O'Sullivan accompanied his gangster father on the road, fleeing from the mobsters who killed his mother and young brother. After an idyllic upbringing by loving adoptive parents in a small Midwestern town, Michael is now deep in the jungles of Bataan, carrying a tommy gun like his father's, fighting the Japanese. When brutal combat unearths deep-buried feelings of violence and revenge, Michael show more O'Sullivan returns to the homefront, a battle-scarred veteran of twenty-two, ready to pick up his old war against the Chicago mob. Suddenly, Michael "Satariano" must become one of the enemy, working his way quickly up to the trusted side of Frank Nitti, Al Capone's heir, putting himself - and his soul - in harm's way. Leaving behind his heartbroken childhood sweetheart, the war hero enters a limbo of crime and corruption - his only allies: Eliot Ness, seeking one last hurrah as a gangbuster; and a lovely nightclub singer playing her own dangerous game. Even as Michael embraces his father's memory to battle the Mob from within - leaving bodies and broken lives in his wake - he finds himself sucked into the very way of life he abhors. In a parallel tale set in 1922, Michael O'Sullivan, Sr., chief enforcer for Irish godfather John Looney, is about to become a father. The bidding of Looney - and the misdeeds of the ganglord's crazed son Connor - put the happy O'Sullivan home at risk. Both Michaels reach a crossroads of violence and compromise as two tales converge into the purgatory of good men trapped in bad lives. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
As a story, this would have made a decent graphic novel. As a novel? Not so much.
The original [b:Road to Perdition|553444|Road to Perdition|Max Allan Collins|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1387717115s/553444.jpg|1081106] graphic novel was beautiful to look at and fun to read. It was like a Dennis Lehane novel in graphic form.
Unfortunately, when he writes straight prose, Max Allan Collins is no Lehane. Lehane digs into his characters, his dialogue sings, his stories have layers, depth, emotion, and sub-text. They have suspense.
Collins' prose has...well...a whole lotta info dumps and a whole lotta tell, don't show. When he introduces a character, say Michael O'Sullivan...either junior or senior, we're treated to pages and pages and show more pages of backstory, of Collins telling us both where that character came from, key moments in his life, and how the characters behave. He never chooses to show when he can tell us.
As such, I found myself growing incredibly bored with the story. Then, he seems to feel that he needs to give a summary of the first Perdition story...even though, by this point, the reader has very likely either read the graphic novel or seen the movie. For those of us working our way through the stories, we got the full story in the first graphic novel, then a summary in each of the three parts of the [b:Road to Perdition 2: On the Road to Perdition (Oasis, Sanctuary, and Detour)|22060|Road to Perdition 2 On the Road to Perdition (Oasis, Sanctuary, and Detour) (Road to Perdition, Book 2)|Max Allan Collins|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1310179187s/22060.jpg|1201157] collection, and now this one, so, after reading for the fifth time, yeah, I think I've got the basic details down.
Honestly, I'm mystified by the choice to write this, the direct sequel, and the next one as prose novels, then to return to the graphic novel format for [b:Return to Perdition|10518565|Return to Perdition (Road to Perdition, #5)|Max Allan Collins|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348062378s/10518565.jpg|15424628].
But nah, while this adds to the overall story, it's nowhere near as good as it should be. show less
The original [b:Road to Perdition|553444|Road to Perdition|Max Allan Collins|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1387717115s/553444.jpg|1081106] graphic novel was beautiful to look at and fun to read. It was like a Dennis Lehane novel in graphic form.
Unfortunately, when he writes straight prose, Max Allan Collins is no Lehane. Lehane digs into his characters, his dialogue sings, his stories have layers, depth, emotion, and sub-text. They have suspense.
Collins' prose has...well...a whole lotta info dumps and a whole lotta tell, don't show. When he introduces a character, say Michael O'Sullivan...either junior or senior, we're treated to pages and pages and show more pages of backstory, of Collins telling us both where that character came from, key moments in his life, and how the characters behave. He never chooses to show when he can tell us.
As such, I found myself growing incredibly bored with the story. Then, he seems to feel that he needs to give a summary of the first Perdition story...even though, by this point, the reader has very likely either read the graphic novel or seen the movie. For those of us working our way through the stories, we got the full story in the first graphic novel, then a summary in each of the three parts of the [b:Road to Perdition 2: On the Road to Perdition (Oasis, Sanctuary, and Detour)|22060|Road to Perdition 2 On the Road to Perdition (Oasis, Sanctuary, and Detour) (Road to Perdition, Book 2)|Max Allan Collins|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1310179187s/22060.jpg|1201157] collection, and now this one, so, after reading for the fifth time, yeah, I think I've got the basic details down.
Honestly, I'm mystified by the choice to write this, the direct sequel, and the next one as prose novels, then to return to the graphic novel format for [b:Return to Perdition|10518565|Return to Perdition (Road to Perdition, #5)|Max Allan Collins|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348062378s/10518565.jpg|15424628].
But nah, while this adds to the overall story, it's nowhere near as good as it should be. show less
CPL, Very good story of post war Chicago crime characters. It would make a good movie.
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Author Information
418+ Works 17,179 Members
Max Allen Collins was born in 1948 in Muscatine, Iowa. He is a two-time winner of the Private Eye Writer's of America's Shamus Award for his Nathaniel Heller historical thrillers "True Detective" and "Stolen Away". Collins also wrote the Dick Tracy comic strip begining in 1977 and ending in the early 1990s. He has contributed to a number of other show more comics, including Batman. Collins created his first independent feature film, Mommy, following a nightmarish experience as screenwriter on the cable movie The Expert. Collins has been contracted by DC Comics to write three tie-ins to his critically acclaimed graphic novel "The Road to Perdition", which was adapted into the feature film. Author of other such move tie-in bestsellers as "In the Line of Fire" and "Air Force One", he is also the screenwriter/director of the cult favorite suspense films "Mommie" and "Mommie's Day". (Publisher Provided) Max Allen Collins was born in Muscatine, Iowa on March 3, 1948. His graphic novel Road to Perdition, published in 1998, is the basis of the Academy Award-winning 2002 film starring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Daniel Craig. His other works include Road to Purgatory, Road to Paradise, Return to Perdition, Bye Bye, Baby, and Target Lancer. He won the Shamus awards for True Detective in 1983 and Stolen Away in 1991. He is completing a number of Mike Hammer novels begun by the late Mickey Spillane. He has collaborated with his wife Barbara Collins on three novels and numerous short stories. Their Antiques Flee Market won the Romantic Times Best Humorous Mystery Novel award in 2009. His comics credits include the syndicated strip Dick Tracy (1977-1993), Ms. Tree, Batman; and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, based on the hit TV series for which he has also written ten novels. He has written tie-in books for several movies including Saving Private Ryan, Air Force One, and American Gangster, which won the Best Novel Scribe Award in 2008 from the International Association of Tie-in Writers. His non-fiction works include The History of Mystery and Men's Adventure Magazines, which won Anthony Award. He is also an independent filmmaker. He has written and directed five features and two documentaries, including the Lifetime movie Mommy and the sequel, Mommy's Day. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Awards
Series
Work Relationships
Is contained in
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Road to Purgatory
- Original title
- Road to Purgatory
- Original publication date
- 2004-11-23
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 85
- Popularity
- 374,450
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.86)
- Languages
- English, German
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 13
- ASINs
- 2
