Bonus FFB on Wednesday: The Long Haul -- Anthony Johnston (writer) & Eduardo Barreto (artist)

As you may have guessed, this is a graphic novel.  And it's a nice hybrid of a western and a caper novel.  All the elements of the caper are present: the main character and his antagonist, the recruitment of the team members (each one with a special skill), the pulling of the caper, and even an epilogue that lets you know what becomes of the characters after the event.  

What's the event, you ask?  Here's the way one of the characters puts it:  "So all we have to do is break into an unbreakable [train] car, open an unopenable safe, avoid fourteen Pinkertons, then hightail it out of there within fifteen minutes?"  To make it even trickier than that sounds, the train the safe weights 2000 pounds and can't be blown open, the train it's on can't be stopped, and telegraphers report on the progress of the train every so often so that everyone knows it's on schedule.

I don't supposed that it's spoilery to say that things don't go exactly as planned, and I also don't think it's spoilery to say that in the end everything works out just as you'd probably want it to.

Author Johnston is the creator of the comic book on which the film Atomic Blonde is based, so he's probably much better known now than he was when he wrote The Long Haul.  Reading it was a lot of fun.  And so was looking at the pictures.  Artist Barreto is great at doing clear, detailed work that's perfect for the story being told.  If you're looking for a good western and a good caper story all in one, this is it.  Check it out.