by Hannah Berry
Metropolitan Books
Britten and Brülightly is a noir style detective story. Fernández Britten has a reputation as a private investigator who uncovers cheating spouses. But after burning out from years of causing emotional pain to his clients, he resigns himself only to work on murder cases. And as a young woman enters his office asking for help finding who killed her fiance, Britten is interested enough to take the case. The crime was written off by the police as a suicide. But as Britten digs deeper, he uncovers skeletons that people will do anything to keep hidden.
As with good noir stories, the suspects all have hidden secrets. And sometimes the action gets a little convoluted as the narration gets a little long winded. But its pretty standard for the genre. All the good points are touched upon. The contacts and snitches. The double crosses and false leads. All make for an entertaining mystery.
But the best part of this book is the art. This is the first graphic novel Hannah Berry has done, and the art style is perfect for this type of story. Dark, muted colors of greens/greys/blues show the gloomy nature of the story. Often washed showing the rain. And much like movies from the heyday of Warner Bros., the camera angles (especially in the action sections) are very dynamic and display movement.
This book is great for the library. Yes, the subject matter of murder and family strife is a little mature so I opted to put this book in the adult non-fiction collection. But it could easily be added to an older teen graphic novel collection.
No comments:
Post a Comment