Y'know, I gotta say, 11 volumes into a 13-volume set, and I've rated every single one as a five-star read?

I honestly can't think of another series I've done that on. The characters are just getting more and more real to me, the story is getting deeper, and the endgame is starting to present itself.

This is just a brilliant series. ( )

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This volume had the most gut-wrenching, tear-jerking, heart-strings-pulling moment of the series for me. Unfortunately, the rest of the volume is a mess. A lot of running around, switching back and forth between characters, towns, cities, decades...a constant sense of confusion and no real time to let things sink in. I suppose it reads better as issues. ( )

This is the volume that really makes it feel as though the endgame is about to start. Everything starts to converge, leading to some shocking developments.

Yet it seems strangely fitting that Azzarello chooses this moment to spend some time on a flashback to a character who has been dead for a while. It's almost as though he's taking a deep breath to remind us where we've come from before plunging onward. ( )

"Once Upon a Crime" is (unfortunately) a rather ho-hum volume in the overall sequence of the collected 100 Bullets. This time around, Brian Azzarello's writing is simply dull and unimaginative, and the plot development leans heavily on cliches, something which previous volumes in the series have done a decent job of avoiding. Eduardo Risso's artwork is as good as ever, but with the story itself seemingly stuck on "repeat", the art alone cannot make this volume work. With only two more volumes to go in the collected series, one can only hope that the remaining installments turn out to be a considerable improvement over this mediocrity. ( )