Crogan's Loyalty Review

Chris Schweizer is back with a new adventure in his Crogan's series, this one entitled Crogan's Loyalty. I reviewed Crogan's Vengeance and Crogan's March very positively and I'm pleased to say that Loyalty does not disappoint.

The story is framed around the modern Crogan descendants going to a funeral. There's evidently been some bad blood between the father (the one seen in March) and his brother and they haven't spoken for nearly a decade. On the way to the funeral, the father explains to his kids the story about two Crogan brothers from the American Revolution that had a massive falling out over which side to fight on. The bulk of the book then relays how the two brothers stumble across each other after the war has started and have conflicting feelings about loyalty to their ideals and loyalty to their family.

It should come as no surprise that Schweizer's storytelling abilities are easily seen here yet again. Anything good that was said about his previous two books can be applied here as well. But there are a couple of things that stand out here over those books.

First, Loyalty has two protagonists instead of one, so Schweizer has to balance the time given to each of the characters here. This is a change from his other two Crogan books, but he handles it quite well. There are definitely two heroes here, not a hero and a sidekick or anything. And, while they're brothers, they don't have a perfectly happy relationship. They have a family bond, to be sure, but their outlooks on some things differ considerably, causing no small amount of tension. It makes for an interesting analogy for me personally, too, as I reflect on my own relationship with my brother. We've never had anything resembling the falling out the Crogans have, but we're not particularly close either.

Also worthy of note here is how Schweizer portrays both sides of the war. Here in the States, our educational system has largely indoctrinated us with the basic notion that King George was an evil bastard and we were more than justified in fighting for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Schweizer smartly acknowledges this as one of the modern Crogan kids realizes that the two brothers were fighting on opposites sides and notes that one of them must have been a "bad guy" since "the Americans were the good guys!" The father goes on to explain how they just had differing views, and that many people just wanted to be left out of the fight entirely. And, naturally, these ideas show up in the main story itself during an argument over supper one night.

There was about a year and half between the first and second books, and another year and a half between the second and third. Well worth the wait in both cases, and I'm now eager to see the fourth volume in the series as Schweizer has clearly proven he's got a fantastic over-arching idea that he's able to execute in a new and entertaining way with each installment. I'm just not sure if I want to read about Daniel Crogan the escape artist or Crogan-Junichi the ninja next!

Crogan's Loyalty retails at $14.99 and is due in comic shops next week.

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