Review by Ian Keogh

Wyatt has been drifting from place to place for several years processing a traumatic incident, when he’s contacted by his brother Jasper. They’re both criminals, Wyatt’s trauma concerns explosives, and his brother wants him back for one last job. It’s planned for the following morning.

Has there ever been a crime story where everything’s gone to plan and there’s been no later comeback? If so, it certainly wasn’t written by Ed Brisson, whose genre record is extensive and impressive. It’s surely not a spoiler to reveal that things couldn’t go more wrong if Homer Simpson had planned it. Wyatt ends up with a woman and her teenage son running from an influential businessman who also heads a religious cult and is hiding a secret. Brisson then twists the screw beautifully by supplying Wyatt with the type of one way or another choice that defines people’s lives.

C.P. Smith opts for naturalistic art in a recognisable world, conveying an understanding of people and what they’re going through. A signature quirk is the incorporation of photographs, yet digitally treated to ensure the drawn figures don’t stand out as anomalies, and Smith changes the weather to reflect the circumstances, making for an atmospheric experience. A brief primal moment of strangeness occurs at the end, during which Smith opts for the less is more choice, which heightens the threat. Other artists would have drawn the sequence differently, and while it could look good, Smith’s way is better for the story.

Each of the first four of five chapters ends with one hell of a cliffhanger, and while Wyatt’s choice might not seem reasoned at first, Brisson ensures everyone’s motivations are clarified by midway. From then much of the remainder concerns belief. Cult leader Cecil certainly has it, but what he believes is only known by few others who’ve seen his truth. Given the theme, everything eventually boils down to what Wyatt believes. What does he believe? It’s worth your finding out.