The Saga of the Bloody Benders

"The Bloody Benders" were a small German immigrant family who settled in late 19th century Kansas, opened a grocery store/inn and began murdering rich lodgers and stashing the bodies across the prarie and in a ditch beneath the house. The ringleader appeared to be the young woman who pretended to speak to spirits and who would find out about the visitors who showed up at their inn. If they had money she would position them in the seat where their backs would be to a screen where one of the other 3 family members would bludgeon the visitor, rob him, then take him down to the ditch/basement and cut his throat. They murdered over a dozen innocent people and then fled when they realised they had been found out. They were never caught and people around the country thought they saw various family members at one time or another. It wasn't even determined if they really were family or not. Geary draws and tells the story brilliantly. The pictures of a late 19th century Kansas conjures up a wistful portrait of frontier life with all it's romance and harshness. The Bender's Inn is drawn in detail and shows how cramped conditions were in those days where you bought the land but had to build the house yourself. The artwork reminded me of Crumb but was different enough to say Geary has his own style. The story clips along at a quick pace and is easily read at an enjoyable sitting. Overall, an interesting little history lesson about an obscure but fascinating case brought vividly back to life with Geary's illustrations and brisk storytelling. I've already ordered other books in Geary's series of Victorian murders so that's how much I enjoyed it. Can't wait for more forgotten cases of murderers from the past!

I almost didn't order this book for the teen section of the library where I work, and I was honestly surprised at how fantastic it was when it came in. The pen and ink illustrations are beautiful and detailed, and Geary tells the story with interest. All of our staff members are hooked on this series now, I'm currently reading "The Case of Madeline Smith" and love it! Great series for fans of true crime..

Rick Geary's graphic novel series A TREASURY OF VICTORIAN MURDER returns with volume 9 of the series especially recommended for prior fans of his graphic novel mysteries. Black and white drawings illustrate the story of four strange people who use seduction to attract wealthy victims, whom they then kill. Excellent action and high drama mystery lends to a fast-paced graphic novel story hard to put down, and recommended for any general-interest holding strong in graphic novels. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

Geary has opened a chapter in history in a very accessible way with this graphic novel series. And "The Bloody Benders" is a fine addition to the series, recounting th history of a family of robber/murderers in the West that kill by stealth, & could easily appear in today's headlines. Their disappearance as mysterious as their lives. Geary's art & writing improve steadily as time goes by, & while the first volumes in the series are very, very good, this one has a fine polish to it. If you like it, try these-- The Big Book of the Weird Wild West: How the West was Really Won! (Factoid Books) Daisy Kutter: The Last Train (Daisy Kutter: The Last Train (Turtleback))

Victorian era crimes have an oddly enduring appeal for folks of every literary taste and political predilection. For liberals, the dark underbelly of that prim and proper age seems to demonstrate the notion that moral repression breeds violence and hypocrisy; for conservatives, the fact that evil and sin lurked even beneath such a blessedly restrained surface, confirms a view of the world as old as the story of the Garden of Eden. Fans of the great detectives take comfort in the idea that the mysteries of human behavior must yield to reason, science, and rigorous procedure. Fans of the criminals revel in the impenetrability of the darkest recesses of the human heart and mind. But regardless of your own personal views, there's no gainsaying the hold that Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes and company continue to exert on our imaginations.Illustrator Rick Geary has been tapping into this lurid fascination for over a decade now, and NBM Publishing is reissuing some of the earlier works in his acclaimed "Victorian Murders" series, beginning with the first, A Treasury of Victorian Murders. Mr. Geary accompanies three brief tales of deliciously bloody (or poisonous) mayhem and murder with an introductory section that sets the Victorian stage and provides some background on the times and the more famous personages of the day. His black-and-white drawings--which might owe something to Edward Gorey but are nonetheless distinctive and original--provide a winsome, tongue-in-cheek contrast to the horrid events that he relates. As he mentions in a 1987 introduction, one of the things that makes the cases so much fun is that even though the society maintained a veneer of respectability, it coincided with the rise of mass daily papers, all intent on out-sensationalizing each other. So when such ghoulish crimes did occur, they gave free reign to the newspapers to engage in the most outrageous speculations about peoples backgrounds and behaviors. He takes evident delight in casually dropping such rumors into the midst of the ornate and fusty little sitting rooms and the forbidding courtrooms in which his stories occur. It all makes for a delightfully droll good time.GRADE : B+