Queen & Country

I finally got around to reading the first volume of Greg Rucka's Queen & Country series from Oni Press. Collecting the first four issues of the series, "Operation: Broken Ground" introduces us to the world of espionage and political intrigue behind Britain's Ministry of intelligence. This story examines the repercussions of an assassination in Kosovo by one of their operatives (or "minders"), the resourceful Tara Chace. Flipping throught the book, I wasn't exactly enamored with what I saw, so I put this off for awhile. But upon consuming this work, I was quite impressed with the level of suspense that Rucka created here. He really is a great storyteller, a master of pacing. And he writes the best women characters in comics too, in my opinion. The back of the trade has a few extra goodies as well, including an interlude that bridges the story between issues one and two, drawn by Usagi Yojimbo's Stan Sakai, and some sketches of Tara Chace, including one by Bryan Lee O'Malley of Scott Pilgrim fame.

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