2 out of 5

Spoilers below.

Max Allan Collins is a huge name in the crime world, and made his notable contribution to comics with both Ms. Tree and his initial Road to Perdition story.  I’d always stayed away from his books in search of things a little less traditional feeling and because I’m a jerk in general, but when one of his older titles popped up in the Hard Case Crime series, I took the plunge.  And I got it.  Collins is a solid writer, unafraid to push things darker than would be expected from the mainstream (even mainstream noir plays it friendly) and his experience in the biz also seemed to give his stories an extra dose of depth that is a generally welcome addition to any tale.

Now I haven’t read the original Road to Perdition.  I have one of the comic sequel / mini-stories, and I saw the film.  Otherwise, my exposure to M.A.C. has only been through that Hard Case Crime book, which, collecting two shorter novels into one, showed Collins’s penchant for extending family driven storylines out over several connected tales and a long period of (in book and out of book) time.  Perdition seems to follow that trend, with our initial story of a vengeful gangster and his son springing off into several comic / book followups that weave around the original experiences of Mike Sullivan and his offspring.  Apparently, Return to Perdition is the first ‘proper’ sequel, and also the tale’s conclusion, following onto the logical endpoint of events.  This makes it necessary in terms of a story’s completion, but somewhat stunted when read on its own.

It starts seemingly far away from Mike Sullivan, introducing us to Vietnam Vet Michael Satariano Jr., who is “killed”  in the war due to a need for the government to hush something up, and then put to work as an undercover assassin, taking care of high-level targets for his government when needed.  Satariano is actually Sullivan’s grandson – this would be apparent had I read the previous installments, but I don’t believe I’ll be re-rating the story once I’ve made my way through those tales.  The need for Return to Perdition feels personal, like Collins wanted this story to end.  I’ve jumped into storylines in the middle without knowing who’s who and the power of events normally swings you along, but RtP has a sort of shambling feel to it.  Satariano isn’t aware of his lineage until the government tasks him with killing his own father… at which point the story switches gears to Mike Sullivan Jr.’s POV (that’s Satariano Jr.’s daddy) and then we are on our way back to Perdition, all the family together, to take care of the ‘final boss’ bad guys and close the book.  It’s, frankly, a sloppy transition – especially given the slow build of how and why Satariano Jr. is sent on this particular task.  It’s also questionable in terms of noir rules, as other potential directions – he kills his father, for instance – offer some hefty emotional angles that the bang bang the end conclusion just doesn’t provide.  Perhaps had I been along for the whole ride, I could breathe the same sigh that Collins seems to release with the close of this tale, but otherwise Return to Perdition is an unfulfilling read, establishing an interesting character that it just manages to walk down its plotline, no twists or turns.