Grim Death and Bill the Electrocuted Criminal

Today’s post is on Grim Death and Bill the Electrocuted Criminal by Mike Mignola and Tom Sniegoski. It is 272 pages long and is published by St. Martin's Press. The cover is an illustration of Grim Death with a raven and ghosts behind him. There is very mild foul language, no sex, and some violence in this illustrated novel. The intended reader is someone who likes classic style pulp fiction and weird stories. The story is told from third person close of different characters moving from one chapter to another. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the dust jacket- An uneasiness festers upon the city streets, threatening the peace and safety of law abiding citizens. A war is escalating, and it seems as though the good and righteous are being crushed beneath the unholy weight of evil’s onslaught. Organized crime is spreading in an unchecked reign of terror.

Until a mysterious agent of retribution rises up from the shadows to challenge the villains. A lone figure, clad in a slouch hat and clothes seemingly stitched from the blackest shadows, masked in the guise of a skull-faced death—a Grim Death—emerges with guns blazing. With him, a wronged ex-con clad in the striped costume of his misfortune—Bill the Electrocuted Criminal.

In this beautifully illustrated 1930s Pulp-style novel, two dark new characters by New York Times bestselling author and comic book writer Tom Sniegoski and New York Times bestselling, award-winning creator of Hellboy Mike Mignola who also worked on the Hellboy movies with Guillermo del Toro, take to the street to fight the growing infection of organized crime. Grim Death and Bill the Electrocuted Criminal are not your average heroes, but they want justice.

Review- A wonderful homage to the classic pulp fiction of the 1920-1940’s. Bentley should have died young but instead Death has chosen him. So Bentley becomes Grim Death and gets vengeance for those killed before their time. He sees ghosts who cannot move on until they are given justice so when the ghost of a young woman comes to him for justice he must discover what really happened  to her and the man who says he killed her. Sprinkled with illustrations from Mignola which add to the overall feel of classic pulp weird. I had a wonderful time reading this book and I would love it if Mignola and Sniegoski would come back and write more in this world. If you are a fan of classic pulp then you need to read this novel. 

I give this novel a Five out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I was given this book as a gift.