Stringer: A Crime Thriller

In this buzzy shaggy-dog story, a clueless small-fry dealer gets swept up in the deadly games played by more dangerous operators. Setting the action in 1983, Kindlon (Frontiersman) takes full advantage of the era’s laissez-faire approach to drug use, illicit items on planes, and tracking crooks across borders. His schlubby, coked-up antihero is Tim, who supplements his day job as racket-stringer (apparently a real gig) for bullying tennis pro Billy by dealing drugs on the European pro circuit. For no good reason, Tim is chosen by cartel boss Alejandro to smuggle a duffel bag of cocaine to America; price of refusal or failure being gruesome death, of course. Little about the crime narrative gels, with readers likely as confused as Tim by the happenstance and dumb luck that dogs him. But as Tim’s bumbling from one self-inflicted crisis to another strings along an increasing number of villains who want to kill him, the reader’s attention is likely to wander from the serio-comic narrative to just take in the jet-set circus of traveling depravity stocked with “barely-functioning drug addicts and retired war criminals,” as Tim quips. Tucker’s frenetic art is a bit crabbed, but at times breaks into incredible eye-catching spreads, like Tim’s turmoil depicted as a spinning Lumiere or the wealthy crowd at a match rendered as Boschian monsters. While frequently nonsensical, this graphic novel’s speed and chaotic good humor make up the difference. (Apr.)