it’s a big night on the Prairie Rose Indian Reservation -- the grand opening of the multimillion-dollar Crazy Horse Casino.

And for ONE of them, it will be their last night on Earth.

One of the interesting things about Casino Boogie is how it changes things up from Indian Country. In Indian Country we are introduced to Bad Horse as our main protagonist and through 5 issues the plot follows him through a linear path in which we get to know some of the other main characters and a bit of the workings of The Rez. But if Indian Country is a story told linearly then Casino Boogie spreads out and is told laterally. This manifests itself in a few ways.

Issue #6 acts as a good transition between these two different story telling styles because it follows a similar pattern to the previous 5 issues allowing us to shadow Bad Horse before imparting on us the important textual lesson that he is not the only character. In this volume we will start to see the broader canvass of characters, their fractured personal histories and the intricately plotted connections that inform their depths.

Red Crow becomes further a Shakespearean figure carrying the weight on his shoulders, the weight of identity, the weight of history and the weight of power. He is compelling, interesting and dare I say that he is a tragic figure; I do have to wonder if his days are numbered. Gina Bad Horse decade’s later still carries the wounds of one moment in time, when two federal agents were killed, and still can't reconcile the embodiment of 'the end justifies the means' that everyone and everything around her has become. She will be a catalyst for explosive change. For Catcher, the alcoholic medicine man, it remains to be seen if he is strong enough to handle what he sees, and more importantly, what he will do. He is the wildcard. Interestingly it’s in Diesel, a white man who claims a 1/16th Kickapoo heritage and self identifies as an Indian, that we get an interesting study in identity politics. He is fervent in his belief of the purity of his heritage but revels in the stereotypical trappings of the race. He is a caricature but a dangerous and violent one. He is a steam roller plowing through everything so his role remains unclear. Dino Poor Bear, who we saw in the first volume, comes from a once powerful family, and is ambitious but a dreamer. His story will be an interesting one, to see if he becomes a pawn moved by greater forces or accumulates some power and changes the configuration of the board. His is a character to watch.

One other way that Casino Boogie spreads out laterally is that it approaches a near-Ulyssean portrait of one single day. Though each section will focus on just one character of this diverse cast the larger exploration of the nuances and facets of the day from every direction possible won't be lost. It’s an exercise in precise plotting to weave together this tapestry of characters and events and Aaron's skills are improving with each book.

This touches on something that is demonstrable here; that each issue functions as a complete story arc but progresses the larger narrative arc forward. This can be a hard balance to strike sometimes, especially in this age of graphic novels, but Aaron never forgets those readers who are purchasing each individual issue on a monthly basis.

Sometime the punch you dont see coming is the one that just hit you. That’s how I felt a couple of times while reading Casino Boogie. Aaron is such a skilled writer that he literally repeats and recycles not one but two reveals from the first volume. But the damdest thing is that you just don't see it coming. It's a deft trick that I would imagine is a tough one to pull off but yet again Aaron nails it.

Casino Boogie capitalizes on the strengths that were shown in Indian Country and improves at every level to tell a compelling and interesting story. It will take us from the top of the power structure all the way down to the kid who mops the floor of the casino and everyone in between. We will go from fifty-five years ago to the present. We will go to the spirit world and come back changed. What’s next? Dunno but I can’t wait.

Fifteen years ago, Dashiell "Dash" Bad Horse ran away from a life of abject poverty and utter hopelessness on the Prairie Rose Indian Reservation searching for something better. Now he's come back home to find nothing much has changed on “The Rez” — short of a glimmering new casino, and a once-proud people overcome by drugs and organized crime.

Now, armed with nothing but a set of nunchuks, a hell-bent-for-leather attitude and (at least) one dark secret, Dash must survive a world of gambling, gunfights, G-men, Dawg Soldierz, massacres, meth labs, trash sex, fry bread, Indian pride, Thunder Beings, the rugged beauty of the Badlands…and even a brutal scalping or two.

Indian Country collects the first five issues of the monthly series Scalped.

The art in Scalped is very good. Offering up shadows with hidden depths at times and bright, clear and detailed panel at others that may represent the duality of the story. Perhaps indicative of the pervasive skin tones of the characters or just a reflection of the sandy deserts where the story takes place there are a lot of red tones and shades in the art of Scalped. Just about every issue ends in a great cliffhanger moment that compels you to read further and the art accompanies these tense moments becomes fraught with peril and potential destruction.

Scalped is a great crime fiction story told in a medium that many crime fiction fans may not typically read, comics. They will unfortunately have missed out on what, when all is said and done, might just come out of left field to be one of best crime fiction novels of the year. But its much more then just a crime fiction story, it’s a bit of a hybrid that combines elements of action and crime stories bundled up neatly together with strong noir elements.

The action is unmistakable from the opening bar fight, where we first meet Red Horse, when, right before the action starts, he proclaims “Whicha you motherfuckers is gonna be the first to cry to Jesus.” From that point on fights will be started, weapons will be pulled, buns will blaze and the action will be relentless. The crime elements will feel familiar to some but only at the most superficial levels as it will only take a light scratch to reveal the depths of these characters that are anything but simple clichés. From the simple synopsis of the story these two elements can be surmised but the pervasive noir story was a pleasant surprise. Red Horse may be a tough guy but we quickly understand that he is an every-man that we can relate to in a lot of ways. He finds himself compelled, by forces largely beyond his control, to enter into a situation where he becomes little more then a pawn. With all these outside forces working against him the urge for his individuality to assert itself becomes stronger and stronger; but as these forces become practically insurmountable this simple task becomes harder and harder. Before long a complex mousetrap has been set for Red Horse.

At the end of the first issue there is a major revelation about one of the characters that changes the face of the entire story; enough to make you want to go back and re-read the first issue again before continuing on to the others. I’ll not go into specifics here about it but I do want to say that I think Aaron made a great decision to have the revelation happen so early on. A lesser writer would have been tempted to wait until much later in the series for the reveal, savoring the build up and trying to cleverly keep it hidden from the reader. Except that at some point it would have become guessable and the impact would have been lessened. As it is since it happens so early on the reader isn’t given time to try and figure such things out because we are becoming familiar with this new world, so its approach isn’t seen and the impact is greater. This was a great decision and really illustrates the care and attention paid to the construction of the story.

Readers entering this vivid and gripping world will be introduced to some of the most complex characters, loyalties and relationships in recent years. Not only are they created with three dimensions but their personalities, and again their relationships, have multi facets. There is a lot of depth and material to be explored here. Red Crow has a confusing sense of identity. An activist mother with strong ideals and beliefs raised him. But then he left everything behind, now all these years later he is both insider and outsider. Red Crow, of all the characters here, might just be the most lost, not knowing, at times, even which way is up. His mother Gina, trying always to stay true to her youthful ideals has become an anachronistic annoyance on The Rez, causing a lot of problems for the new power structure. She runs into problems trying to recruit member for the cause from the younger generation, who would much rather use a gun to win. Does Gina love her son more, or the cause? Then there is Lincoln Red Crow. What happens to a Red Power activist to make him betray the cause? Has he betrayed the cause? Or, is he furthering it by gaining some measure of economic power for his people? As these complex characters and their complex relationships, histories and loyalties intertwine it will become hard to know whom to root for, whom to root against and who will survive.

Through all of these characters, and this story, a lot of tough questions about America, race, class, vice, identity, history, cultural identity, loyalty, youthful ideals and their potential corruption will be asked. Some answers will be given but none of the questions and their potential answers are easy or neat and pretty.

This is a book that both entertains and makes you think.

--Brian Lindenmuth