Review by Ian Keogh

Ted Naifeh’s return to the Crumrin family concludes with The Wild & the Innocent. Since his return from the faerie lands supernatural trouble seems to gravitate toward Will Crumrin, and his naturally reticent personality isn’t ideally suited to handling them. Fortunately he has the protection of a magic stone and his friends Cinnamon and Tucker have greater courage, which is required when they all head out for a hike and camping in the mountains as there’s trouble on the way.

While the leading trio have featured in the two previous books, Naifeh introduces others here, in a character study living up to the title. One of the topics under the spotlight is overbearing parents, and Naifeh avoids the obvious horror of summer camps by characterising the adult presence as kindly, sympathetic and understanding rather than the usual gung-ho bully. Tucker and Cinnamon’s relationship is now established, which leaves Will as rather the spare wheel, and from that Naifeh concocts a bubbling stew of misunderstandings and the wrong things being done for the right reasons. He doesn’t hold back, and the aggression makes for uncomfortable reading. At one point Naifeh seems to be heading into Lord of the Flies territory, but that’s swerved.

Naifeh’s art is again gloomy, but he’s got a great intuition when it comes to appropriate atmosphere, both in terms of location and emotional turmoil. The characters may be jagged and spiky, but they live and breathe.

The Wild & the Innocent may challenge and polarise regular Crumrin readers. This and the previous series have long been sustained on the manifestation of supernatural menaces, yet it’s well over a third of the way through before the personality clashes take second place to a mystical menace. Will is key. He may not be emotionally intuitive, but he is observant, and steps up when the threat arrives. It’s well written, the unsaid connection being that what Will’s had to process regarding people has made him stronger. Fans wanting to see Courtney Crumrin in action again are rewarded with her putting much to rights, but in terms of this story alone it would have been nice to see the problems overcome without her.

As this is the final volume of Crumrin Chronicles it becomes clear the trilogy has been Will’s coming of age story from his rescue at the start. Events of The Lost & the Lonely have a sequel here and while the Crumrin books have hardly been cheery reading, this is about as dark as they’ve become. This is good both as a standalone story and series closer, but don’t expect much in the way of cheer.