REVIEW

Tyler Cross: Angola

The second book in Fabien Nury and Brüno’s dark tales of crime and punishment sees Tyler Cross doomed to spend 10 years in a dangerous hard-labour prison

A close up of the prison governor in Tyler Cross: Angola

In this follow-up to last year’s Tyler Cross: Black Rock, Fabien Nury and Brüno provide us with more edgy thrills. It’s a completely different chapter in Tyler Cross’s life, so don’t worry too much if you haven’t read the first one (though we’d thoroughly recommend it).

Tyler Cross before his stint in Angola penitentiary

Following a bungled heist (which is already more complicated than it ought to have been, due to the victim hiring the robbers to help him avoid paying out on a messy divorce) Tyler finds himself in a brutal penitentiary. Cross is all too aware that the guards are corrupt, and the prisoner hierarchy is teetering and open to influence, but this also makes him a target. Escaping his incarceration is going to prove spectacularly tricky.

Brüno captures the sweaty, intense atmosphere perfectly, with shadowy darkness helping the warders turn a blind eye to the underhand goings-on of the prisoners. As with the previous book, his characters capture archetypal noire tropes with aplomb, creating a sweeping study of individuals caught up in the judicial system.

The story isn’t as dynamic as the first, trapped as it is in a prison, but it’s just as intense and dark. Nury manages to supply something different, while staying deeply entrenched within the noire genre.

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