I think one of the more satisfying elements of this ongoing story is the surefootedness of Aaron's world-building. This isn't a story told in real-time, it bounces around through all of the characters' backstories, and how those equally terrible histories echo down through time to present day.

I can't get enough of this. ( )

This is devastating, depressing, why-the-hell-am-I-reading-this stuff. I'm already on volume 5. ( )

Dash and Carol continue their destructive relationship, Dino gets a new job which leaves him homeless, Mr. Brass continues to wreak havoc on the Rez, Red Crow is charged with taking care of Gina's spirit and continues his trip down memory lane to face the many demons in his past, and is driven to take a possibly unwise stand against the Hmongs. It's dark, it's gruesome, it's violent and cruel, it hits you in the stomach and, before you have caught your breath, comes back and punches you again. It's about humans, trying to survive in the harshest of worlds, desperately clinging to some ideal that they've half forgotten, partially due to an all-encompassing cynicism and partially due to their own growing coldness, but humans at the core, hurt again and again by their hope for something good that, seemingly inevitably, always turns to bad. It's a story that won't leave you alone for a long time after you've closed its pages. It's one of the best examples of noir I have ever encountered and I can only hope I encounter something as good again. ( )

http://geekylibrarian.wordpress.com/2009/05/02/review-scalped-vol4-the-gravel-in... ( )