Review by Frank Plowright

Lullaby is a codenamed assassin working for a well financed group murdering criminals. It’s suggested they’re a US government employee, but this is never explicitly stated. She’s seen using various aliases at various times as events in the present day are bolstered by flashbacks to her past as a young girl whose mother has been murdered. We’re told the circumstances, but something relevant has been kept from Lullaby, who’s spurred by her mother’s death to follow her father’s trade.

Over the opening chapter AJ Scherkenbach is a writer keen to prove authenticity by showing his research. It’s scattered with sleep-related code terms he’s either heard are used by government hitmen or conceived to sound real, but which constantly require asterisked explanation and are frequently repeated. It’s impressing the few while alienating the many, but thankfully an affectation eventually minimised, and without the distractions the efficient construction of a thriller plot can be admired.

Scherkenbach shows Lullaby completing missions in the present day, setting up them up via switching scenes to the activities of people in various US cities, while interspersing them with well conceived training sessions in the past as her father passes on accumulated knowledge. What’s supposed to be clear is, while readers are also directed to have suspicions about some matters, particularly whatever Lullaby’s boyfriend might be mixed-up in.

Sweet Lullaby is drawn in a consistent style approximating that so popularly used by J. Scott Campbell in the 1990s to the extent of prompting wonder whether J. Briscoe Allison’s name is also a form of homage. Within the realm of cartooning emaciated people and large-breasted women it’s good artwork. There’s a sense of place, there’s no trouble figuring out what’s happening and each member of a large cast is drawn to be recognised instantly.

There’s eventually so much going that it seems a standard final chapter won’t be enough to bring everything to a satisfactory conclusion, but Scherkenbach more or less manages it. Not everyone will predict the moment everything leads to, but plenty of readers will. On the other hand the relationship between father and daughter is novel, the situations work and Sweet Lullaby keeps the pages turning fast.