Picked this up because the Oregonian review liked it. It is rather well done, but too violent for my taste. After winning the National Book Award for a large tome, Johnson did this as a 4-part serial in Playboy magazine. It's fast-paced, slick, funny, dark and violent. As a book qua book, it's quite wonderful. Both the back and front covers are full color portraits of characters in pixilated cartoon style. The book jacket is red and metallic and has bullet holes. I think the typography looks lovely, but I'm no expert on such.