Carter Allen: Atlanta

THE LOWDOWN:  Prolific comic book artist and graphic novelist Carter Allen returns with the existentialist mystery novella, Atlanta.  It’s an unsettling tale of unknowable places between worlds or between one place and the next, and it turns out that the knowable places might not be quite what we expect.

Allen’s stories tend to peddle intrigue, captivation, and action, and they trade in dramatic conflict.  He’s always giving the person holding his books a reason to keep reading.  There always at least one thing or one idea that makes the eyes slide over to the next page and then turn to the next page.  The only disappointing thing about Atlanta is that it ends with a really big question: what’s next?  That’s the horror in this quasi-mystery horror.

FOR READERS OF:  Allen’s stories take familiar plots and ideas and he gives it a peculiar, but engaging spin.  He creates the unexpected, with complexity that isn’t obvious because he makes his books accessible – easy to read, but engaging.  Atlanta is for the reader looking for the unanticipated in the recognizable.