This is at once a story of violent retribution, a father-son bonding story and a great inside look at the Prohibition Era criminal gangs. Starting with the Looney crime family and its business connections, which reach all the way into Al Capone's mob in Chicago. Mike O'Sullivan in this story is a force of nature. This puts into motion a violent chain of events. Unfortunately, Looney's half-wit son notices O'Sullivan's son. One day his young son sneaks into the back of a car to see what his father does and witness a mob execution- Mike O'Sullivan is aka the Angel of Death. O'Sullivan keeps his work and family strictly apart.

Mike O'Sullivan also happens to be a top level assassin for a mob boss named Looney. He served during World War 1 and was a good and decorated soldier. As with most things, the book is far, far superior. Road to Perdition is the original story off of which the Tom Hanks movie was made. Also, if you're only familiar with the film adaptation you may be pleasantly surprised that the book plot is somewhat different, but still no less effective.

Author Collins also skillfully but believably mixes a handful of 'in real life' personalities - crime boss Al Capone, his right-hand man Frank Nitti, and upstanding federal agent Eliot Ness - into the tragic storyline, and illustrator Rayner slyly inserts a number of panels which intentionally echo movie scenes (I specifically recall The Left-Handed Gun, in which a young Paul Newman portrayed Billy the Kid, and - believe it or not - a signature moment from the 70's blockbuster Jaws). It's a style-over-substance type of book - the plot is admittedly sort of thin, yet the pure suspense of the father and his young son on the run throughout the wintry Midwestern U.S. I state that opinion because of its time period setting (the bleak, crime-soaked era where Prohibition overlapped with the Great Depression, circa 1929) AND with the non-stop scenes of brutal violence that would otherwise have many pages dripping in red. 'The Angel of Death,' administering two fatal gunshots to said mookĪlthough likely better remembered these days for the acclaimed 2002 film version - featuring Tom Hanks playing against type as an organized crime gunman, a scuzzy Jude Law, a pre-007 Daniel Craig, and the final silver-screen role for Paul Newman - Road to Perdition first arrived in this world as a graphic novel that was appropriately illustrated in a desolate black & white format. 'Save a place for me, friend.' - Michael O'Sullivan, a.k.a. 'See you in hell, 'Angel'!' - shotgun-wielding mook, trying to send the protagonist to his grave

Max allan collins road to perdition