Ghosts of Manhattan

February 15, 2010
Mann (The Affinity Bridge
) combines the trendy superhero and steampunk genres, but his cardboard characters and laughable dialogue (“I had never loved, until I loved you”) never attain even the level of parody. In an alternate 1927 Manhattan, a deadly vigilante nicknamed the Ghost stalks the city, attacking the employees of the Roman, a mysterious mobster. The Roman's men have been committing horrific acts of violence, drawing the attention of police detective Felix Donovan. Also dragged into the plot are carefree playboy Gabriel and his lover, Celeste, who seems to exist solely to sleep with the hero and then be sacrificed to move the plot along. The action sequences are solid, though excessively gory, but there's little that comic fans haven't seen done more impressively a dozen times before.

April 1, 2010
A gangster known as the Roman is terrorizing Manhattan, and the vigilante hero known as the Ghost aims to stop him. The Roman is responsible for a series of gruesome murders, in which ancient but unbelievably fresh and unmarred Roman coins are left with the victims. The police are understandably stymied. The Roman is more than he seems at first glance. He has moss golems working in his gang, and hes unusually interested in some pieces of ancient art in the Metropolitan Museum. There are far more sinister things afoot than a mere gangster. Fortunately, the Ghost is up for the challenge, with some well-timed assistance: detective Donovan, allied by chance with the Ghost, provides precisely the right foil for the vigilante. Mann handles the tropes of various genres quite well, allowing the reader to sit back and be thrilled by the clever twists and turns of a spectacularly imagined world and its inhabitants. Turns out that a Jazz-Age-superhero-steampunk-occult thriller is a perfect concoction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)