XIII Book 12: The Trial

XIII Book 12: The Trial, by Jean Van Hamme & William Vance, Cinebook

THE PRESIDENT of the United States of America has been kidnapped. Not such a bad thing in the XIII universe where the leader of the free world is a crook who’s responsible for murdering his own brother; a former president himself...

Only President Wally Sheridan went too far and now General Carrington is going to expose him by holding his own private court and plans to broadcast it live onto television, and once all the evidence is given there will be an execution.

That the US government force XIII to intervene isn’t something we quite morally agree with under the circumstances but it allows Van Hamme to outline the whole mystery so far played out across a dozen books in a linear coherent manner, meaning we no longer have to keep a scorecard. That stated, the thriller writer still keeps us on our toes, and even as we think this could well be a fitting conclusion to the series as a whole the writer casually opens another can of worms to keep the series going in a possibly revitalised. Meanwhile Vance simply continues to draw in a studied classic adventure strip manner, unable to draw an unattractive female but also able to capture beauty in each of his detailed background landscapes.

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