Murder Mysteries: 07/10/09
Murder Mysteries is metafiction in the form of a graphic novel. It's short, only 64 pages long, and easily read over a lingering cup of coffee. It's two stories, both told as flashbacks, one of a man who ten years earlier spent the night talking to a homeless man on a trip to Los Angeles, and then the homeless man's story.

The homeless man's story takes up the bulk of the book. He tells a story Raguel, the "Vengeance of the Lord" sent for by Lucifer to  discover the identity of an angel who murdered another. Raguel learns the true horror of being an aspect and a function of the Lord at the event horizon of Lucifer's fall.

Raguel's story though is both a cautionary tale and a framing device for the truth behind the protagonist's last night in Los Angeles. Everything he tells before meeting the man at the bus bench needs to be re-evaluated in light of Raguel's story and the final warning whispered at the close of the nighttime tale.

I thoroughly enjoyed Murder Mysteries and was both drawn in and repulsed at the same time. The mixture of emotions and the fact that I'm still think of the book more than week after reading is the reason behind my giving it a full five stars at GoodReads.

books | graphic novel | Neil Gaiman | 2000

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