Enter a world where demons and ancient Japanese folklore intersect with the Yakuza and modern life... where one boy will risk everything in a quest to save his family. Twins Kai and Toshi Hara are born on either side of midnight, with strange powers: Toshi is immune to harm, and Kai sees worlds that shouldn't be there. Now Toshi has been kidnapped into servitude for Aratsu, Lord of Knives, and her new job will bring her into contact with the fearsome Gleaner, Lord of Death - even as her brother Kai makes strange new alliances on his quest to rescue her...

A Map of Midnight is the second volume in the Crossing Midnight series of graphic novels. This volume collects issues #6 to 12 of the comic book series, written by Mike Carey.

Toshi and Kai Hara, twins separated by a few minutes at birth, are drawn separately to Tokyo - Toshi to learn her new duties as Lord Aratsu's servant, and Kai to search for his missing sister.

To Toshi, the city presents a sinister face: attuned to the invisible kingdoms, she sees ghosts and monsters wherever she goes. But when she insults the biggest monster of all - the Gleaner, one of the five faces of death - her fortunes take a definite turn for the worse.

Brother Kai has a different goal in mind, and with the help of Inspector Yamada it seems that he's finally close to picking up Toshi's trail. But his plans are derailed when he's forcibly adopted by Tokyo's teenaged date girls and stumbles across the activities of a supernatural serial killer. Kai and Toshi are walking the same ground, almost at the same time, but they've never been so far apart.

Carey builds well on the events that unfolded in the first volume, really opening up his world for the reader, making this a series that's well worth following.

8

Nick Smithson