What a brilliant idea. Take Agatha Christie’s best known mystery and turn it into a gorgeously illustrated graphic novel, with a cherubic Hercule Poirot sporting a moustache from ear to ear and the familiar cast of characters, who board the train at night in Stamboul (now called, of course, Istanbul) and wake up in the morning to find the very dead body of millionaire Samuel Edward Ratchett. Stopped in its tracks by snowdrifts, the train becomes both crime scene and interview room, since surely the murderer must be on board. Bob Al-Greene is a most talented illustrator, and he shows a playful wit that is not always apparent in the novel itself. For anyone who knows the plot, this graphic novel is a delight. And for those who don’t, this book will both surprise and delight.
Zusha Elinson
Eugene Stoner had the best of intentions. When the Marine veteran tinkered with his rifle in his Los Angeles garage in the early 1950s, all he had in mind was to create a better, lighter, and faster gun for the military. Out of this dream came the AR-15, but instead of simply being used by soldiers, it has emerged as the weapon of choice for grievance-addled men to kill fellow Americans. The authors, who work for The Wall Street Journal,have done a masterful and damning job tracing the birth and development, and rampant misuse, of the AR-15, and there are heartbreaking stories elegantly told of the destruction this weapon has wrought on families and towns across the nation. No scene is quite as poignant as when the authors visit Stoner’s old garage with Susan Kleinpell, his daughter. (The inventor died in 1997.) “It’s becoming so regular, these shootings,” she says as she walks back to the car. “Every time, I’m like, ‘Please God, don’t let it be an AR-15’—and it usually is.”
