Matt Kindt has made a name for himself with books like Super Spy, Revolver, and the critically-acclaimed ongoing Mind MGMT. From high-concept science fiction to superhero monster comics, Kindt has proven himself to be a very versatile talent. His latest graphic novel, Red Handed: The Fine Art of Strange Crimes, yet again shows off that versatility. Incredibly clever and deviously twisted, Red Handed is an immensely satisfying read.
The book is comprised of short stories, all of which take place in the city of Red Wheel Barrow. Unsolved crime in Red Wheel Barrow is virtually non-existent thanks to the city’s star cop, Detective Gould, and his advance crime-solving skills. As the book opens, the city is celebrating its tenth straight year without an unsolved murder, and it’s to the point where most people don’t even bother committing the crime because they know that Gould will ultimately catch them.
The crimes depicted in the book, then, are much more creative than simple murder. A man steals a Picasso, cuts the painting into smaller pieces, and sells the pieces to fund his art collecting. A woman writes a novel in the form of an art installation, using lettering pilfered from buildings, signs, and other sources. A man orchestrates attacks on himself that lead to lawsuits and big payouts. These are just a few of the characters and scenarios in the book, and while most of the culprits’ stories end in the same way, they’re all part of a larger puzzle that isn’t fully revealed until the final pages of the book.
Kindt’s storytelling here is as skillful as always. Each story has its own distinct feel, even as it fits into the larger world of the book. The way he varies panel placement and breakdown adds to each story immensely. The story of the Picasso thief, for example, starts off with larger panels, with each subsequent page gradually being split up into more and more small panels. Similar choices throughout the book serve the stories well, and make the whole that much stronger.
The structure of the novel is a bit like Christopher Nolan’s classic film, Memento. A lot of the stories run concurrently with each other, and each chapter ends with a few pages of dialogue, white text on black backgrounds, between two unknown speakers. It soon becomes clear that one of the voices is Det. Gould, but the identify of the other voice remains a mystery until the book’s conclusion. The two discuss the nature of crime, of law enforcement, and of Det. Gould’s methods. This conversation serves as the backbone of the novel, and it’s extremely effective the way that it is split up across the length of the book. Most chapters also include ‘newspaper strip’-style sequences of Det. Gould’s homelife with his wife, as well as a romance strip starring a friend of Gould’s wife.
Red Handed is the kind of book that you want to reread as soon as you’re finished with it. There is so much detail on each page, and the ultimate mystery is so complex, that reading it again gives the reader a vastly different experience than the initial read. An intricately-woven crime story, Red Handed will keep you guessing until the very end.
