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Sunday 1 March 2009

I.R.$. 1 Taxing Trails. Stephen Desberg (Writer), Bernard Vrancken (Artist). Cinebook. (2008)


A very satisfying crime story told from an unusual angle. Larry B. Max is special agent for the US Internal Revenue Service and he becomes involved in a enjoyably complex plot that is triggered by the murder of Swiss man in Los Angles, he had been under surveillance by the IRS and they are very curious as to why he was murdered. The trail leads to a female assassin and a man who is fighting with Swiss banks to recover assets deposited by Jews trying to keep it safe from the Nazis.
Larry Max has an professional encounter with the female assassin and the trail leads to a very wealthy man who also has roots in the Nazi concentration camps and who is supporting the work to recover the lost assets of the Jews who died there. The plot nicely avoids the obvious and takes an interesting turn into a bigger more widespread story. The conclusion is sharp and satisfying.
This art is clean and detailed, the action is dynamic and the cast is well drawn. The story packs a great deal of information into each page and the plot structure is logical, the various reveals are well timed and add to the force of the story. Larry Max is an excellent action hero, a hard professional able to respond quickly to trouble, with a nice shadow in his private life that humanises him. An excellent series.

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