Red Handed: The Fine Art of Strange Crimes gets 3 Stars

Red Handed: The Fine Art of Strange Crimes by Matt Kindt is an interesting book.  It is a bit bizarre, weird, and quirky at times, but it is intriguing enough.    

I give Red Handed 3 out of 5 stars. Since it is a graphic novel and under 300 pages it is a ridiculously fast read.  I enjoyed the complexity of the story line, but I honestly just felt the story lacked some meat and humph to it.  Red Handed was oddly interesting enough, but just kind of blah.  It was just an "okay" book in my opinion, but other reviews I read felt differently. 

I checked this book out from the library, and it was shelved in the Juvenile section.  However, I would consider this a Young Adult (YA) book.  There are some sex topics, violence, sexual assault/abuse and more topics that I would most definitely not want my juvenile reader reading.  I think 9th grade is the youngest I would let a child read this book.

If you are a fan of quick mystery reads this may be a fun book for you. 

Amazon had the following book review to give you a better idea of what the book is about.  

"In the city of Red Wheel Barrow, crime is on the rise—though no case goes unsolved, thanks to the brilliant, restless mind of Detective Gould. The offbeat nature of the lawbreaking (a woman steals chairs, a novelist lifts words for her book, a Peeping Tom sabotages elevators to get his thrills) could easily be played for yuks, but Kindt goes deeper, turning the seemingly random episodes into a rumination on the nature of crime itself. What is crime? Is there crime without victims? This fascinating work recalls Kindt’s earlier efforts (2 Sisters, 2004; Super Spy, 2007), combining his love for the trappings of crime fiction and nostalgia for the conventions of comic-book serials with an offbeat artistry and sly humor. Panels are precisely composed with casual line work and a muted color palette that reveals the texture of the paper. Newspaper clippings, imageless scenes of dialogue, and stylistic riffs (postcards, paperbacks, comics) keep things fresh and surprising. As characters recur (in particular, a real-estate agent named Tess), the story builds to a wonderfully structured and surprisingly affecting climax in which Gould is forced to confront the idea of preventing, rather than merely solving, crime. If David Lynch scripted Dick Tracy it might—might—be as great as this."

Apparently, I was not nearly as much of a fan as this book reviewer.  however, I am just being honest with my thoughts and opinions.  

Though, I do love to hear your opinions on the book.  Has anyone read it?  What did you think? 

Happy Mystery Graphic Novel reading!