Review by Frank Plowright

Creator Himuro makes no attempt to move stealthily into this action thriller, which opens with an extended gunfight occupying just under the first quarter of the volume. Known as a Cleaner when carrying out assassinations, Grace Rosa is extremely good at her job, unafraid of long odds, and able to think on her feet. It makes her a killer of choice for the Alterna group, but while she has no great problem fulfilling a contract, her purpose in joining Alterna is to discover what’s happened to her foster father Rogan. He was also an Alterna employee and disappeared five years previously.

Over the opening half Himuro’s style appears to have slipped into repetition. He establishes complete scumbags and then sets Grace among them as she sees each of them as eliminating one further obstacle keeping her from reacquainting herself with her father. It’s extremely violent, with Himuro relishing the consequences of the violence by presenting it in the comics equivalent of slow motion. This is lingering on the moments as the bullets fly.

For someone in her career and with her reputation Grace seems extremely innocent when it comes to the ways of the criminal underworld, but persistence pays off.

There’s not been a second volume, and the more Grace Rosa progresses what started with enthusiasm becomes more ambitious. It culminates with an audacious final chapter being a conversation with flashbacks almost sidelining Grace herself in what could be seen as a completion of her story. For better or worse, by the end she’s infinitely more knowledgeable, and the choice becomes what she should do next. This could be seen as complete in the single volume, or it could have been left for Himuro to pick up again later. Either way, as things stand there’s too much time wasted at the beginning when better ways to tell the same story occur.