Fans of Casablanca’s 2008 debut, the urban farce 6 Sick Hipsters
, will best appreciate this uneven satire. The high-profile kidnapping of Leigh Tiller, a New York socialite, sets in motion an unusual confluence of events. Tiller’s rich father, far from being eager to pay the hefty ransom, actually wants his daughter killed and employs a doctor turned hit man known as the Serologist to do the deed. Meanwhile, the radical artists known as Strategic Art Defense, whose cultural guerrilla warfare aims to foment a national revolution, frustrate the hit man by rescuing Tiller from her captivity in New Jersey and eventually indoctrinating her into their cause. Readers should be prepared for some erratic characterizations. At one point, for example, the Serologist claims the accident that left him with hideous scars changed him into an evil man only to state a few pages later that he’s always known he wasn’t “a good person.” (Mar.)
