Well, this was certainly a wild ride from start to finish. ( )

adult graphic novel/1930s-40s noir. ( )

Feiffer has created a masterfully dark comedy, wittily embracing stock characters—like a small-time criminal with a twisted heart of gold who aspires to higher crime, an evil twin, a pretty-boy narcissist, and on and on. The plot unfolds through a increasingly complicated weaving that, just as it begins to become impossibly intricate, begins to loosen, then quickly unravel in a crescendo of karmic paybacks. Everyone gets their due, including a very Some Like It Hot resolution for the only two characters who remain endearing throughout the narrative.

As some readers have criticized, you can get lost among the multiple faces of multiple characters, losing your way for pages at a time. The brown and black images are artistically superb, but color may have made it easier to track the personalities from one scenario to the next. And while Feiffer’s method of overlaying different events that transpire at the same point in time with stacked word balloons, I think I may have welcomed an old-fashioned meanwhile-back-at-the-ranch device to help me make the connection.

Feiffer’s illustrations are an artistic triumph, and his plot a testimony to his first-rate brain. After having read it once four years ago and again recently, I have to admit that thinking about it is more fun than reading it. It’s going to be one of those books that is worth several reads, each time finding more buried treasure. ( )

Like other readers I found this story confusing in places.even on a second reading. ( )

Nice period story, great art. Hard to suspend disbelief as it goes on. ( )