The Shady Lane Retirement Center For Elderly Adults is pretty much your standard-issue old folks’ home. You’ll find randy old men, low-paid nurses trying to care, bingo tournaments, and a little bit of hooking up going on between those residents fortunate enough to have a Viagra prescription. It’s also home to Robert Sprunger, also known as “The Boston Strangler.” So why is a serial killer living out his days there? Because he’s no more immune to the ravages of age than anyone else. But even as he fantasizes about the occasional kill, his calm, natural routine gets disturbed by the arrival of a new resident, another man named Robert. Robert Steib, as a matter of fact, a/k/a The Zodiac Killer. Two men, two serial killers, one small community… something has to give, doesn’t it?

When I saw Wayne Chinsang’s name on this book, it gave me pause. On one hand, he wrote the absolutely brilliant HEAVEN, LLC. On the other, he was responsible for BAD IDEAS, the only Jim Mahfood-drawn book I’ve refused to let sit on my shelves. So I wondered about THE ROBERTS. Would it be good… or another pile of shit?

The verdict: it’s somewhere in-between.

Certainly, Sprunger makes for an interesting lead character. He’s a killer, but Chinsang and Shady manage to give him some depth and make a statement about the effects of aging and their refusal to play favorites: everyone dies. Even a killer. And the dynamic between the two Roberts, particularly before Sprunger discovers Steib’s real identity, is amusing. There’s a snarky homoerotic subtext to it. And Rose sells this stuff like his life depends on it, on every page. The book looks amazing.

But nothing happens. Aside from the arrival of Steib, the book is without any sort of plot movement. Like one of the folks living in the Shady Lane home, it desperately needs a laxative. With over forty pages of story, you expect more than what you get here. So the back half had better deliver.

Marc Mason