Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Volume 4

December 1, 2007
The fourth collection of the manga misadventures of five Buddhist university students follows them from Tokyo's outskirts, where they moonlight as crop-circle architects, to the hidden enclaves of exotic animal traffickers harboring deadly parasites. Led by ever-resourceful, bald-pated Kuro Karatsu, they get help from unlikely sources, including a blonde Ohio etymologist as well as their resident talking hand puppet. In one outing, they use channeling talents to communicate with an alien entity possessing the wrinkled remains of a chimpanzee cosmonaut. In another, they discover that the corpses displayed in a medical exhibit have been made to the purpose by a serial killer who starts preserving his victims while they?re still alive. Otsuka's taste for eclectic science keeps the storytelling interesting, while Yamazaki's crisp pen-and-ink drawings perfectly suit the macabre subject matter.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)