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Death to Pachuco
A Chicano noir retelling of the Sleepy Lagoon Murder Trial and the Zoot Suit Riots during 1943 wartime Los Angeles, Death to Pachuco is an untold story lost from the American history books.
During the summer of 1943, Los Angeles became a hotbed of tension and conflict as a series of fierce clashes erupted between U.S. Navy members and Mexican American youth stemming from the murder of Carlos Urbano. Private eye Ricardo "Ricky" Tellez needs to find the Sleepy Lagoon Killer before the racist mob kills him in the Zoot Suit Riots.
The clock is ticking - and it's a bad time to be a Mexican.
From the author of the critically acclaimed Latinx Top Cow series La Voz De M.A.Y.O, and Helm Greycastle returns with a thrilling graphic novel, perfect for fans of true crime noir.
Collects Death to Pachuco #1-5, a facsimile of The Sleepy Lagoon Case rare pamphlet published in 1943 with a foreword by the legendary Orson Welles, and an afterword by award-winning journalist Jazmine Ulloa (El Paso).
During the summer of 1943, Los Angeles became a hotbed of tension and conflict as a series of fierce clashes erupted between U.S. Navy members and Mexican American youth stemming from the murder of Carlos Urbano. Private eye Ricardo "Ricky" Tellez needs to find the Sleepy Lagoon Killer before the racist mob kills him in the Zoot Suit Riots.
The clock is ticking - and it's a bad time to be a Mexican.
From the author of the critically acclaimed Latinx Top Cow series La Voz De M.A.Y.O, and Helm Greycastle returns with a thrilling graphic novel, perfect for fans of true crime noir.
Collects Death to Pachuco #1-5, a facsimile of The Sleepy Lagoon Case rare pamphlet published in 1943 with a foreword by the legendary Orson Welles, and an afterword by award-winning journalist Jazmine Ulloa (El Paso).
168 pages, Paperback
Published April 14, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
May 3, 2026
Art and storytelling so abysmally bad it truly made me quit. I tend to think a good story can survive to poor art. I guess that part wasn’t too good either, eh?
April 27, 2026
"Death to Pachuco" a timely work focused on issues that are sadly once again relevant, yet in the end, it is deeply ineffective in delivering its message and unsatisfying in its ability, to tell a story that is relevant and engaging.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, Image Comics, for providing me with a DRC in exchange for my honest review.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, Image Comics, for providing me with a DRC in exchange for my honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
This review was originally published at my website.
“Now’s not a good time to be a Mexican.” So opens Henry Barajas’s Death to Pachuco, which immediately forces the question, has there ever been a good time to be a Mexican in America?
Although it’s set around the Zoot Suit riots of 1943 Los Angeles, racist attitudes haven’t changed a whit in the 80-plus years. In Pachuco’s opening frames, we’re immediately confronted with a group of US Navy boys accosting a group of Mexican-Americans in a theater. Outside, the police are looking for a murderer. They’ve indiscriminately rounded up hundreds of Mexicans; men, women, children, it didn’t matter so long as their skin was brown. Sound familiar? One doesn’t have to look too far to see similar imagery of militarized white supremacists targeting Others, and occassionally evening killing white Americans because they dared to oppose their hostilities, right here in the good ‘ol U.S. of A. in 2026. Today it’s ICE. In 1943, it was the KKK. Only the acronyms and the masks these fascists wear have changed.
Private Investigator Ricardo Tellez has been hired by one of the families caught up in the cop’s dragnet to help clear the name of a woman being detained as a suspect (alongside hundreds of other Mexicans) in the death of Carlos Urbano.
Despite being, unfortunately, scarily relevant to our present situation, the central mystery at the heart of Pachuco’s noir is disappointingly simplistic. There’s no red herrings and no grandly complex investigation with multiple suspects and moving pieces. The bad guy is fingered early on by the first person Tellez speaks with, and the rest that follows is little more than a manhunt. There’s nothing here to keep you guessing or all that involved aside from the hope that the politics at the heart of the narrative and the riot it’s building towards comes to a climactic head. Barajas tries to shade in some character complications, giving Tellez some rudimentary depth by making him a heroin addict, but even that never really seems to go anywhere or lead to anything momentous.
In comics, ideally, visual art and text work hand-in-hand to tell a compelling story, functioning together in ways that neither can do alone. Dialogue here is a mix of English and Spanish, with the art providing necessary context clues for those who, like me, don’t speak Spanish. Unfortunately, Rachel Merrill’s art isn’t very appealing and lacks the finesse of noir stylists like Steve Epting or Eduardo Risso. David Lapham’s striking covers, used here in the trade collection as chapter markers, are enough to make you wish he’d done the interiors, too, so large is the disconnect in talent between what you want versus what you get.
Merrill provides art duty on the Gil Thorp comic strip, and her work on Pachuco is in a similar style. It may work OK for three or four small panels in a newspaper, but for a whole book it leaves a lot to be desired. She foregoes realism in favor of an almost abstract style. Her cast of characters are approximately human, although they often look more like molded putty than human beings, their features ill-defined and more blob-like and inconsistent. The style strikes me as immature and underdeveloped, which is a shame. Having seen some of the poster art she’s produced, you can’t help but wonder what happened and why there’s such a large disconnect in her work from one medium to another.
The climax lands with a thud, sadly. The actual riot is presented on such a small scale that it’s hard to imagine this being a noteworthy historical event. We should have been treated to a cinematic, widescreen moment of carnage that shows the stakes. Instead, Merrill reduces it to tiny panels of one-on-one violence. There’s no sense of scope to any of it, just individual close-ups, which is disappointing given how well she presented a KKK march through the streets in an earlier chapter. That sense of energy and promise of danger is sorely lacking in the book’s final pages. It only gets more muddled from there. I found myself struggling to identify some of the characters, even as dialogue revealed them to be somebody seen previously. This is as much a scripting issue as an artistic one, given how sparingly the individual in question was used previously and why they were suddenly so prominent in the wrap-up. A few pages later, I found it impossible to distinguish who was getting stabbed during a fight between Tellez and the man he’d been chasing, and had to laugh at how much the killer’s knife changes in appearance from one panel to the next, at times not even looking anything at all like a knife and more like a gray stick or wad of clay. While I don’t care much at all for Merrill’s visual aesthetic, the noir vibe colorist Lee Loughridge brings to the table is strong. I just wish a better draftsman had been enlisted to really make the story shine.
Rather than being simpatico, Merrill’s art functionally hurts the overall story. Barajas’s script could certainly have ironed out a few kinks or gone further in providing additional context to the events depicted. Still, given America’s current political predicaments, stories like Death to Pachuco are absolutely necessary, not only to push back on the now-dominant racist narratives told by those in power and propagated and parroted by mainstream media with little to no repudiation let alone challenging truths, but to educate readers on important historical events they might otherwise be unaware of or lack proper context for. The Zoot Suit Riot is indeed an important flashpoint in American history and our country’s relationship with Mexican immigrants, and it deserves a deeper narrative and a more visually impressive exploration than we get here.
“Now’s not a good time to be a Mexican.” So opens Henry Barajas’s Death to Pachuco, which immediately forces the question, has there ever been a good time to be a Mexican in America?
Although it’s set around the Zoot Suit riots of 1943 Los Angeles, racist attitudes haven’t changed a whit in the 80-plus years. In Pachuco’s opening frames, we’re immediately confronted with a group of US Navy boys accosting a group of Mexican-Americans in a theater. Outside, the police are looking for a murderer. They’ve indiscriminately rounded up hundreds of Mexicans; men, women, children, it didn’t matter so long as their skin was brown. Sound familiar? One doesn’t have to look too far to see similar imagery of militarized white supremacists targeting Others, and occassionally evening killing white Americans because they dared to oppose their hostilities, right here in the good ‘ol U.S. of A. in 2026. Today it’s ICE. In 1943, it was the KKK. Only the acronyms and the masks these fascists wear have changed.
Private Investigator Ricardo Tellez has been hired by one of the families caught up in the cop’s dragnet to help clear the name of a woman being detained as a suspect (alongside hundreds of other Mexicans) in the death of Carlos Urbano.
Despite being, unfortunately, scarily relevant to our present situation, the central mystery at the heart of Pachuco’s noir is disappointingly simplistic. There’s no red herrings and no grandly complex investigation with multiple suspects and moving pieces. The bad guy is fingered early on by the first person Tellez speaks with, and the rest that follows is little more than a manhunt. There’s nothing here to keep you guessing or all that involved aside from the hope that the politics at the heart of the narrative and the riot it’s building towards comes to a climactic head. Barajas tries to shade in some character complications, giving Tellez some rudimentary depth by making him a heroin addict, but even that never really seems to go anywhere or lead to anything momentous.
In comics, ideally, visual art and text work hand-in-hand to tell a compelling story, functioning together in ways that neither can do alone. Dialogue here is a mix of English and Spanish, with the art providing necessary context clues for those who, like me, don’t speak Spanish. Unfortunately, Rachel Merrill’s art isn’t very appealing and lacks the finesse of noir stylists like Steve Epting or Eduardo Risso. David Lapham’s striking covers, used here in the trade collection as chapter markers, are enough to make you wish he’d done the interiors, too, so large is the disconnect in talent between what you want versus what you get.
Merrill provides art duty on the Gil Thorp comic strip, and her work on Pachuco is in a similar style. It may work OK for three or four small panels in a newspaper, but for a whole book it leaves a lot to be desired. She foregoes realism in favor of an almost abstract style. Her cast of characters are approximately human, although they often look more like molded putty than human beings, their features ill-defined and more blob-like and inconsistent. The style strikes me as immature and underdeveloped, which is a shame. Having seen some of the poster art she’s produced, you can’t help but wonder what happened and why there’s such a large disconnect in her work from one medium to another.
The climax lands with a thud, sadly. The actual riot is presented on such a small scale that it’s hard to imagine this being a noteworthy historical event. We should have been treated to a cinematic, widescreen moment of carnage that shows the stakes. Instead, Merrill reduces it to tiny panels of one-on-one violence. There’s no sense of scope to any of it, just individual close-ups, which is disappointing given how well she presented a KKK march through the streets in an earlier chapter. That sense of energy and promise of danger is sorely lacking in the book’s final pages. It only gets more muddled from there. I found myself struggling to identify some of the characters, even as dialogue revealed them to be somebody seen previously. This is as much a scripting issue as an artistic one, given how sparingly the individual in question was used previously and why they were suddenly so prominent in the wrap-up. A few pages later, I found it impossible to distinguish who was getting stabbed during a fight between Tellez and the man he’d been chasing, and had to laugh at how much the killer’s knife changes in appearance from one panel to the next, at times not even looking anything at all like a knife and more like a gray stick or wad of clay. While I don’t care much at all for Merrill’s visual aesthetic, the noir vibe colorist Lee Loughridge brings to the table is strong. I just wish a better draftsman had been enlisted to really make the story shine.
Rather than being simpatico, Merrill’s art functionally hurts the overall story. Barajas’s script could certainly have ironed out a few kinks or gone further in providing additional context to the events depicted. Still, given America’s current political predicaments, stories like Death to Pachuco are absolutely necessary, not only to push back on the now-dominant racist narratives told by those in power and propagated and parroted by mainstream media with little to no repudiation let alone challenging truths, but to educate readers on important historical events they might otherwise be unaware of or lack proper context for. The Zoot Suit Riot is indeed an important flashpoint in American history and our country’s relationship with Mexican immigrants, and it deserves a deeper narrative and a more visually impressive exploration than we get here.
March 5, 2026
My Selling Pitch:
A muddy historical graphic novel about the zoot suit riots.
On my do not read list.
Pre-reading:
Old timey crime thriller?
(obviously potential spoilers from here on)
Thick of it:
This is really hard to read since there’s no translations.
Unfortunately, a me!
I can’t keep track of who anyone is. All the characters are drawn the same way and don’t get proper introductions. It’s not super clear who the dialogue bubbles go to, and then I can only understand half of the dialogue because there’s no translations.
This is coming across pretty sexist. I don’t think it’s trying to be, but like…
Post-reading:
I hate dragging historicals that are clearly trying to educate the next generation by making the stories more accessible, but sometimes it’s gotta be done. This is really hard to read. The characters are drawn too similarly and not introduced well, so it’s nearly impossible to consistently identify them. For a crime thriller, there’s no thrill. There’s no mystery to this. We identify whodunnit early on and then just have to wait for them to catch him…again. There’s minimal and cliched backstories given to each character but it’s not nearly enough development to make an audience care about them. There’s a romance forced into this that really doesn’t work. All the female characters were manipulators using their bodies to get what they wanted, and that left a really bad taste in my mouth. It wasn’t coming from a place of feminist empowerment or survivalist commentary. It had this vibe of women are lying seductresses, and that’s really irritating if you’re gonna accidentally be misogynistic while trying to criticize how racist America has been and continues to be.
A good half of this book’s already sparse dialogue is in Spanish, and no translations are provided. That’s going to make it harder for your audience to read it. People don’t wanna be Google translating every other page in a graphic novel.
Who should read this:
History fans
Ideal reading time:
Anytime
Do I want to reread this:
No, but I’d like to read a clearer account of this story
Would I buy this:
No
Similar books:
* Deep Cuts by Joe Clark-graphic novel, historical, social commentary
* Circus Maximus by Mark Sable-graphic novel, historical, heist, revenge thriller
* No Man’s Land by Szymon Kudranski-graphic novel, crime thriller
* Mama Came Callin’ by Ezra Claytan Daniels-graphic novel, historical, swamp gothic
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
A muddy historical graphic novel about the zoot suit riots.
On my do not read list.
Pre-reading:
Old timey crime thriller?
(obviously potential spoilers from here on)
Thick of it:
This is really hard to read since there’s no translations.
Unfortunately, a me!
I can’t keep track of who anyone is. All the characters are drawn the same way and don’t get proper introductions. It’s not super clear who the dialogue bubbles go to, and then I can only understand half of the dialogue because there’s no translations.
This is coming across pretty sexist. I don’t think it’s trying to be, but like…
Post-reading:
I hate dragging historicals that are clearly trying to educate the next generation by making the stories more accessible, but sometimes it’s gotta be done. This is really hard to read. The characters are drawn too similarly and not introduced well, so it’s nearly impossible to consistently identify them. For a crime thriller, there’s no thrill. There’s no mystery to this. We identify whodunnit early on and then just have to wait for them to catch him…again. There’s minimal and cliched backstories given to each character but it’s not nearly enough development to make an audience care about them. There’s a romance forced into this that really doesn’t work. All the female characters were manipulators using their bodies to get what they wanted, and that left a really bad taste in my mouth. It wasn’t coming from a place of feminist empowerment or survivalist commentary. It had this vibe of women are lying seductresses, and that’s really irritating if you’re gonna accidentally be misogynistic while trying to criticize how racist America has been and continues to be.
A good half of this book’s already sparse dialogue is in Spanish, and no translations are provided. That’s going to make it harder for your audience to read it. People don’t wanna be Google translating every other page in a graphic novel.
Who should read this:
History fans
Ideal reading time:
Anytime
Do I want to reread this:
No, but I’d like to read a clearer account of this story
Would I buy this:
No
Similar books:
* Deep Cuts by Joe Clark-graphic novel, historical, social commentary
* Circus Maximus by Mark Sable-graphic novel, historical, heist, revenge thriller
* No Man’s Land by Szymon Kudranski-graphic novel, crime thriller
* Mama Came Callin’ by Ezra Claytan Daniels-graphic novel, historical, swamp gothic
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Author
I am a comic book retailer that read a lot of comics! I went into Death to Pachuco expecting a stylish noir comic and came out of it feeling like I’d just sat through a history lesson that actually resonated!
Set in 1940s Los Angeles during the Sleepy Lagoon case and the Zoot Suit Riots, this story follows private eye Ricky Tellez as he tries to solve a murder before racist violence spirals even further out of control. And yeah, it’s a detective story but it’s also way bigger than that. It’s about identity, survival, and what it means to exist in a country that doesn’t always want you there.
The Comadres y Comics podcast really nailed it when they said that this book balances education and entertainment without feeling like homework. It’s chisme, history, and social commentary all rolled into one. You get the drama, the fashion (zoot suits ON POINT), and the tension. But also the deeper context of what Pachucos represented and why they were targeted.
And the art absolutely carries the mood. The noir-inspired shadows, muted tones, and sharp contrasts give everything this gritty, cinematic feel. lt’s ike you’re walking through smoke-filled streets and backroom deals. The character designs, especially the zoot suits, aren’t just stylish, they feel intentional, like visual statements of identity and resistance. It’s one of those books where the art doesn’t just support the story, it deepens it.
It really stood out that the Spanglish dialogue and cultural details made it feel lived-in and authentic, not watered down for a mainstream audience. Also, the noir vibe keeps the pacing tight, even when the subject matter is heavy not shying away from showing how little some things have changed
That said, it can feel dense at times like it’s asking you to sit with the history rather than just breeze through the plot. But honestly, that’s kind of the point.
Overall, Death to Pachuco feels like a love letter to Chicano culture wrapped in a crime story with just enough anger underneath to remind you why stories like this matter.
If you like noir mysteries, historical fiction with real stakes or culturally grounded storytelling then this book is for you!
And shoutout to Comadres y Comics for putting this on their listener’s radar!! This is exactly the kind of comic that deserves to be talked about.
Set in 1940s Los Angeles during the Sleepy Lagoon case and the Zoot Suit Riots, this story follows private eye Ricky Tellez as he tries to solve a murder before racist violence spirals even further out of control. And yeah, it’s a detective story but it’s also way bigger than that. It’s about identity, survival, and what it means to exist in a country that doesn’t always want you there.
The Comadres y Comics podcast really nailed it when they said that this book balances education and entertainment without feeling like homework. It’s chisme, history, and social commentary all rolled into one. You get the drama, the fashion (zoot suits ON POINT), and the tension. But also the deeper context of what Pachucos represented and why they were targeted.
And the art absolutely carries the mood. The noir-inspired shadows, muted tones, and sharp contrasts give everything this gritty, cinematic feel. lt’s ike you’re walking through smoke-filled streets and backroom deals. The character designs, especially the zoot suits, aren’t just stylish, they feel intentional, like visual statements of identity and resistance. It’s one of those books where the art doesn’t just support the story, it deepens it.
It really stood out that the Spanglish dialogue and cultural details made it feel lived-in and authentic, not watered down for a mainstream audience. Also, the noir vibe keeps the pacing tight, even when the subject matter is heavy not shying away from showing how little some things have changed
That said, it can feel dense at times like it’s asking you to sit with the history rather than just breeze through the plot. But honestly, that’s kind of the point.
Overall, Death to Pachuco feels like a love letter to Chicano culture wrapped in a crime story with just enough anger underneath to remind you why stories like this matter.
If you like noir mysteries, historical fiction with real stakes or culturally grounded storytelling then this book is for you!
And shoutout to Comadres y Comics for putting this on their listener’s radar!! This is exactly the kind of comic that deserves to be talked about.
April 19, 2026
As a big fan of Luis Valdez's play, Zoot Suit , which also covers the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial and the ensuing Zoot Suit Riots, I was very excited to see that this book was coming out in TPB format (as I was too late to the party to pick it up in comic form).
Sadly, I find myself disappointed; Death to Pachuco is basically a shoddy historical fanfiction, where the OCs have very little relation to the events around them and don't have a proper analogue in the story from which the book takes its inspiration, just using it as a loose backdrop for context and as an impetus for the plot (a plot that ultimately doesn't accomplish much BTW). The lack of proper relation to the source material is only made more poignant by the inclusion of the actual Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee paperwork, which shows just how far from the source this work strays.
The characterization also isn't well done in my opinion, doing very little to make the main characters relatable or likeable, and also kind of just rendering the antagonists as underdeveloped strawmen.
With regards to the writing, I also found it an odd choice to not translate any of the Spanish dialogue (save for a single line); I could kind of get a little of it from context and having grown up in California, but for a book that's supposed to be directed towards the greater public, and one that's trying to bridge the cultural divide to tell a story that's timeless, as well as relevant to the current day, it's an odd choice to intentionally alienate a good portion of potential readers by presenting portions of the plot in a non-digestible manner.
Overall, this book left me very underwhelmed and somewhat upset about the near-abject lack of historical accuracy. Pick it up if you want a D-tier noir story that doesn't really accomplish anything, but if you want a better adaptation of the Sleepy Lagoon case, go watch the excellent film adaptation of Zoot Suit .
Sadly, I find myself disappointed; Death to Pachuco is basically a shoddy historical fanfiction, where the OCs have very little relation to the events around them and don't have a proper analogue in the story from which the book takes its inspiration, just using it as a loose backdrop for context and as an impetus for the plot (a plot that ultimately doesn't accomplish much BTW). The lack of proper relation to the source material is only made more poignant by the inclusion of the actual Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee paperwork, which shows just how far from the source this work strays.
The characterization also isn't well done in my opinion, doing very little to make the main characters relatable or likeable, and also kind of just rendering the antagonists as underdeveloped strawmen.
With regards to the writing, I also found it an odd choice to not translate any of the Spanish dialogue (save for a single line); I could kind of get a little of it from context and having grown up in California, but for a book that's supposed to be directed towards the greater public, and one that's trying to bridge the cultural divide to tell a story that's timeless, as well as relevant to the current day, it's an odd choice to intentionally alienate a good portion of potential readers by presenting portions of the plot in a non-digestible manner.
Overall, this book left me very underwhelmed and somewhat upset about the near-abject lack of historical accuracy. Pick it up if you want a D-tier noir story that doesn't really accomplish anything, but if you want a better adaptation of the Sleepy Lagoon case, go watch the excellent film adaptation of Zoot Suit .
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to Net Galley for the free ebook to read.
"Now's not a good time to be a Mexican." Sometime at the end the author notes that this applies in 2026 just as much as it did in 1940s. This one hit me hard in my SOUL and took me a while to read because it was just heavy.
The lingo lowkey cracked me up because it reminded me of the movie Blood in Blood Out, especially when I saw someone use the word "carnal." I liked that the lingo was mixed up because I feel like nothing was overly used that it got annoying. I also was surprised by how many phrases and words are recently popular that were popular then I know nothing of the lingo of that time period so I'm not sure if guey was really used or it the author mixed in some modern stuff but it was pretty cool. I also loved seeing people basically mention living on stolen land because I genuinely thought that was a more modern concept.
It would really help if you could read Spanish but you don't absolutely have to.
I know nothing of the zoot suit riots and I was excited to read this to learn more but I learned more about it in the stuff afterward than I did from the comic itself. I don't know that I understood what was going on in the comic as much as I should have. After reading the stuff at the back I have a better idea but throughout the comic I was pretty lost. The art style made it difficult to distinguish characters. There may have been too many too because I got lost and I have no idea why the dude was taken care of or by who. It felt like we were going to plan an KKK plotline but then it was just never used. IDK if that was for like authenticity for people in the area or not. I did not like the romance. He bangs one and says the other he's not good enough for. Idk it didn't feel like they actually interacted enough to form a romance.
"Now's not a good time to be a Mexican." Sometime at the end the author notes that this applies in 2026 just as much as it did in 1940s. This one hit me hard in my SOUL and took me a while to read because it was just heavy.
The lingo lowkey cracked me up because it reminded me of the movie Blood in Blood Out, especially when I saw someone use the word "carnal." I liked that the lingo was mixed up because I feel like nothing was overly used that it got annoying. I also was surprised by how many phrases and words are recently popular that were popular then I know nothing of the lingo of that time period so I'm not sure if guey was really used or it the author mixed in some modern stuff but it was pretty cool. I also loved seeing people basically mention living on stolen land because I genuinely thought that was a more modern concept.
It would really help if you could read Spanish but you don't absolutely have to.
I know nothing of the zoot suit riots and I was excited to read this to learn more but I learned more about it in the stuff afterward than I did from the comic itself. I don't know that I understood what was going on in the comic as much as I should have. After reading the stuff at the back I have a better idea but throughout the comic I was pretty lost. The art style made it difficult to distinguish characters. There may have been too many too because I got lost and I have no idea why the dude was taken care of or by who. It felt like we were going to plan an KKK plotline but then it was just never used. IDK if that was for like authenticity for people in the area or not. I did not like the romance. He bangs one and says the other he's not good enough for. Idk it didn't feel like they actually interacted enough to form a romance.
April 19, 2026
To me, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, is an extremely flawed television show. I never thought that I would look at its handling of the Zoot Suit Riots fondly, but then I read this atrocious book. Death to Pachuco was painful and confusing to read. From what I've cobbled together this is a fictionalization of the the Sleepy Lagoon murder that involves twin sisters and a PI. I honestly didn't know the women were twins because ALL the characters look the same. The PI himself is almost interchangeable with the women. The only clear distinction made is between the Nazi sailors and those wearing Zoot Suits, because, well, an all white uniform is at least not able to be messed up even with this ugly art style. And if you're thinking, but the cover looks so nice, what are you talking about? That's a different artist. They knew no one would buy this from the interior art. What annoys me most is that there is an important message to be said here about racism and Nazis but it's lost amongst a plot that makes no sense and art that makes no distinctions. Avoid this book at all costs.
Read
March 4, 2026"Now is not a good time to be a Mexican" is echoed throughout this noir retelling of the Sleepy Lagoon Case and Zoot Suit Riots during 1942/3 in Los Angeles. This murder case launched a racist-motivated arrest of Mexican youths while under heavy inspection by the press (also pushing racial biases) and was one precursor to the aforementioned unrest.
A terribly interesting piece of history, and, unfortunately, still relevant today. I will cut it short: I did not enjoy the comic's art, nor could the storytelling capture my investment even though my interest in the topic, and I learned more about the case from research afterward than while reading it.
I think the story would have benefited from staying closer to the real case. In addition, the actual riot also catches the short straw in storytelling, and I wished it would have been a greater focus.
Nonetheless, the comic includes real case notes at the end, which are insightful and complement the retelling well.
Thanks to NetGalley and publishers for an ARC for an honest review.
A terribly interesting piece of history, and, unfortunately, still relevant today. I will cut it short: I did not enjoy the comic's art, nor could the storytelling capture my investment even though my interest in the topic, and I learned more about the case from research afterward than while reading it.
I think the story would have benefited from staying closer to the real case. In addition, the actual riot also catches the short straw in storytelling, and I wished it would have been a greater focus.
Nonetheless, the comic includes real case notes at the end, which are insightful and complement the retelling well.
Thanks to NetGalley and publishers for an ARC for an honest review.
May 9, 2026
This historical noir had so much potential. The zoot suit riots are important and overlooked history. I appreciate that this comic attempted to tell the story, aptly timed during the modern political racist ICE raids in America.
However, the art was just too hard to follow and it was a detriment to the story. I could not tell the characters apart and it made it incredibly difficult to read. I also think it was such a missed opportunity that none of the zoot suits were highlighted at ALL in the art.
Things I liked - 1) the badass women in the story and 2) the attention to historical detail ex. the scene place cards in the panels that shared the original Spanish name of a neighborhood juxtaposing the English version, “Paredón Blanco aka Boyle Heights.”
Sadly this graphic novel was a miss for me.
However, the art was just too hard to follow and it was a detriment to the story. I could not tell the characters apart and it made it incredibly difficult to read. I also think it was such a missed opportunity that none of the zoot suits were highlighted at ALL in the art.
Things I liked - 1) the badass women in the story and 2) the attention to historical detail ex. the scene place cards in the panels that shared the original Spanish name of a neighborhood juxtaposing the English version, “Paredón Blanco aka Boyle Heights.”
Sadly this graphic novel was a miss for me.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy.
This is a retelling of the Sleepy Lagoon Murder Trial and the Zoot Suit Riots during 1943 wartime Los Angeles done in Chicano noir.
I love the noir genre, especially when it is done right. This one is 75% right, which means it hits hard in the detective underbelly intersecting with the grit of the night. The 25% miss is mostly with translation decisions. I have an extremely basic grasp of Spanish and had a hard time keeping up with several conversations in the novel. This one could have been easily fixed. Sadly, it left some Spanish words with no asterisk link to an English translation.
This is a retelling of the Sleepy Lagoon Murder Trial and the Zoot Suit Riots during 1943 wartime Los Angeles done in Chicano noir.
I love the noir genre, especially when it is done right. This one is 75% right, which means it hits hard in the detective underbelly intersecting with the grit of the night. The 25% miss is mostly with translation decisions. I have an extremely basic grasp of Spanish and had a hard time keeping up with several conversations in the novel. This one could have been easily fixed. Sadly, it left some Spanish words with no asterisk link to an English translation.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Not a success – for the likes of me, at least – this makes a habit of dropping into Spanglish at every opportunity, whether it makes sense or not, and the art is not good enough for you to know who a lot of the characters are. It involves a murder case with the culprit allowed to get away with it at the expense of a Mexican American innocent, and was due to lead up to a real life riot, but I bailed before then, meaning this ended up as a lost opportunity to teach me la verdad. A generous two stars.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Solid, maybe not spectacular. The art didn’t do much to enhance the story.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
A mystery set in WWII-era Los Angeles during the Zoot Suit riots (1943). The story is interesting but too many detective tropes. (Also the detective is 21?)
The illustrations are distracting and not great and not because it’s stylized.
The illustrations are distracting and not great and not because it’s stylized.
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