Goodreads synopsis:
Comic book illustrator Michael Yoo is having a terrible week. He’s just arrived in San Diego for Comic-Con — the annual nerd Mardi Gras that triples the beachside city’s population with 150,000 fans. Michael hopes to spend the next five days working his booth in Artist’s Alley, where he’ll sign autographs and sell sketches for $40 a pop. Instead he’s implicated in the death of his editor, the widely feared and reviled Danny Lieber. There are plenty of suspects onhand — from rival illustrators to burlesque cos-players. But the most valuable clues might be hidden in Michael’s own sketchbook. He’s spent a good portion of the convention illustrating people he’s met and places he’s visited, and he’s inadvertantly captured some very important information. The devil is in the details, and readers who pay careful attention to this book’s black-and-white sketches will be on the right trail to unmask the murderer.
I’ll start with my overall impression of this book which was…mixed. It took a while for me to get into the story because so much of the opening was focused on making recognisable references for comic book fans or convention fans, as well as setting up the backdrop of a convention centre that made me feel like I was deep into someone’s Tumblr rather than reading a murder-mystery novel. Once the story actually started and Michael (the protagonist) started to work towards solving the murder of his ex-colleague(s), I began to properly enjoy reading the novel.
Michael, a comic book artist past his prime, arrives at Comic Con in San Diego and very quickly becomes a suspect in his editor’s murder and has to navigate police investigations, comic book politics and his relationship with his ex-wife and her former boyfriends/his former colleagues.
The novel’s use of comic book references and it’s celebration of geek-dom sometimes seems a bit cringey as it builds and builds without much addition to the story, but can be appreciated at times. Since I went to see Deadpool 2 last week, I can sort of liken it to the references and meta style of that – sometimes gratuitous, sometimes enjoyable. Unsurprisingly, Wade also makes a couple of appearances in this novel too! One part that really sticks out is Michael’s speech to the crowd at an awards show during the convention about celebrating the works of artists while they are producing them, not just retrospectively. Fred Van Lente is a comic book author himself and so it isn’t surprising that the novel would present a viewpoint that I would expect that he himself would support, it isn’t something that I expected to find in a humorous Comic Con themed murder mystery novel although it is worth considering – creative artists SHOULD have more rights to their work than is often granted to them and they should not have to struggle to make ends meet.
Overall, I would recommend this book to fans of comic book and ‘geek’ culture, it has a well meaning message in the midst of a dramatic story and sometimes silly antics. You can find The Con Artist on BookDepository.com here, it is released 10th July 2018.
A copy of this book was given to my by the publisher by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Books For Becca 