A History of Violence by John Wagner and Vince Locke

Tom McKenna is a meek and mild-mannered diner owner who has a high reputation in the town as a fine man. But when two punks try to rob his diner, he makes short work of them. The story is a three-day wonder of how a man armed only with a glass coffeepot took on a pair of gun-wielding punks and won.

But that act of defense earns Tom much unwanted attention from the media. Shortly after his picture is published in several papers, however, he finds that it has earned him attention of another, far deadlier sort: three men in a dark car, one missing an eye, come to town looking for him and calling him "Joey". Tom says he doesn't know anyone with that name, and denies being this "Joey". The men continue to show up wherever he and his family are, and Tom gets angrier and more agitated with each "coincidence" of their showing up. The men quickly go from strange to downright menacing. But when Tom's son is snatched by the men and held at gunpoint, Tom is forced to gun them down and defend his family. He admits to being Joey during a shootout with the men after sending his family away. He kills the two younger men and nearly kills the older man. He also takes a wound that puts him in the hospital.

There, he confesses all to his wife and son. His name really *is* Joey, and he is the man they were looking for. He tells them of his youth in Brooklyn and of a crime he and his best friend planned and took part in to avenge his friend's brother, who had been gunned down by a mobster and killed. Afterwards, the enforcer for that mobster chased them and caught his friend, Richie. But Joey gave some of the money he took to his grandmother so she could get an operation and live, and fled with the rest. He, too, was nearly caught, but managed to get away missing only part of his pinky finger.

Now, the forces of the mob want revenge on him, and there can be no rest for Tom/Joey until he faces up to the ghosts of his past and the men who want him killed for what he did. But can he keep his family safe, or will his history of violence lead to their deaths as well as his own?

This graphic novel looks at the costs of keeping secrets, and how they always will out in the end, causing more pain the longer they are kept. Tom/Joey however, is a good man who was drawn into bad circumstances. Had he grown up somewhere else than inner city Brooklyn, he would never have gotten involved in a crime in the first place, nor if he hadn't kept the secret for so long. But Tom/Joey's intention to keep his secret from everyone made things worse in the long run. How far will he go to keep his secret, and what will he do to keep his family and those he loves safe from the mobsters who are gunning for him?

Even as a graphic novel, this has the power to shock, and it keeps on delivering those shocks in different ways, from the initial crime of the two killers who later try to assault Tom's Store all the way up to the end when we find out the fate of Joey's friend Richie, and at plenty of other stops along the way. Through all the shocks, you get the feel of menace closing in around Tom and his family, menace that will grab him and not let him go. Reading the book feels almost claustrophobic at times because you begin to sympathize with Tom/Joey and imagine how you would feel in his shoes, and it isn't a pretty situation.

Once your sympathy is with Tom, however, you wonder how he will get out from under the weight of all the problems his secret has caused him. Is there any hope of an end other than death? Or will Tom find another way to end his problem? It's probably no secret that the ending is violent as hell, and bloody, too. But even as Tom reassures his wife that it's over, you have to wonder... is it really? A very affecting and effective Graphic novel, but definitely not for kids.