**Disclaimer: I received an eARC from the wonderful people at Image Comics (through NetGalley) to read this book.**

It would seem that nowadays crime comic books are the new superhero comic books.  As if the moment that Brian Michael Bendis (and Michael Avon Oeming) released Powers and Frank Miller published Sin City, the comic world has been repeatedly leaping head-first into the noir world of crime comic books.  Stories of murder, betrayal, lust, and the occasional decapitating, comic book fans are hungry for the respite from company-wide crossovers where characters die only to be brought back to life six weeks later or publisher reboots that aren’t called reboots but clearly are reboots…  you get the picture.

Comic book readers want things dark, complicated, and messy… much like life.

Enter Robert Kirkman and Thief of Thieves.  Kirkman is no stranger to human nature.  Even though his success was through The Walking Dead, it is clear that TWD isn’t really about the zombies but the survivors, who actually have to live.  Kirkman is intrigued by the living.

Thief of Thieves is all about the living.  The pieces left behind by living life a certain way.  When you steal for a living, things are stolen from you in the process.  That’s what Conrad, the main character, teaches us.  His personal life is in pieces and it has caught up to his professional life.  Conrad then enacts a plan to make things right by those that he has wronged in his personal life.

Based on a story by Kirkman and written by Nick Spencer, Thief of Thieves is a riveting story of double-cross, of friendship and family, of choices, and, of course, of thieving!  It’s exciting, dynamic, at time hilarious, and compulsively readable.  I soared through the graphic novel, the pages flapping by.  Shawn Martinbrough’s artwork is solid, never getting two artistically to impede the story but always delivering solid work that is beautiful and functional at the same time.

All in all, what I loved about the book was that it felt like Oceans 11.  Not in that smarmy-smug-year-we’re-career-criminals-but-we’re-cool but in that I’ve-got-a-master-plan-that-will-leave-everyone-guessing way!  This book is fun, it plays with time, it keeps you guessing, it has fun lines, and people doing dangerous and cool things.  It feels like the cool drama that Kirkman and Spencer and Martinbrough really want it to be.

When it was done, I was left wanting more and plan to head to my local comic book shop to find the next issues.