Review by Frank Plowright
It’s not immediately apparent from the cover that Cross to Bear is a Western, explained in writer Marko Stojanović’s introduction as a genre embedded in both him and artist Siniša Bonivić during their childhood. While the form is long dead in the nation that spawned it, it remains a source of wonder and entertainment in Europe.
Stojanović sets his action thriller in the era’s dying days. It’s 1899 when Simon takes the then arduous journey from the UK to Tombstone to locate his estranged brother Edgar, both of whom previously belonged to the Order. It’s a centuries-old organisation founded by the original Crusaders to combat unholy threats. There’s a reason for the setting being 1899, one rather casually disclosed as part of the back cover blurb, when inside it’s less obvious for a while. Suffice to say there’s a particularly violent and diligent killer on the loose. It’s not as if Edgar doesn’t have other problems, since the thuggish son of a local rancher persists in causing trouble in the saloon bar owned by Edgar’s wife.
Bonivić embeds a well designed cast in viable locations. Edgar looks a man who’s lived a life, and there’s a solid flow to the action, but it’s in the service of a story that’s unnecessarily complicated. The core plot is a pair of brothers with issues to be worked out tracking a killer. Supply a viable supporting cast, and that’s all that’s needed. All the background concerning a centuries old mystical organisation and whether or not it’s lost sight of original aims is entirely unnecessary, and poor window dressing for ultimately having little relevance until an unconvincing ending. Much the same applies to Baltimore, a native American adopted by Edgar and his wife after a tragedy. His heritage is exploited briefly, but not adequately enough to seem anything other than lip service toward inclusion.
The second supernatural intrusion at first seems unimaginative, as transporting the killer to a different era or location is hardly a new idea. Stojanović, though, handles this aspect well, providing a viable and terrifying threat, especially in the final chapter. The first surprise there is also well considered, while the second is pointless, the point already having been made. It’s strange that Stojanović can plot some aspects so well, yet not see how much more effective Cross to Bear would have been with all the secret organisation nonsense stripped out.
