To The Last Page

Never judge a book by its cover they say, and that’s doubly true when it comes to graphic novels, where the cover art might be promising but the interior artwork often never quite lives up to it. Not so in the case of Black Water Lilies , where the interior art by Didier Cassegrain surpasses the cover with stunning imagery and measures up to the somewhat high demand of capturing its picturesque Normandy village location of Giverny very much in the spirit of Monet. In the case of Black Water Lilies however, and it is a ‘case’ since it’s a crime thriller, the evocation of Monet is central to the mystery and the metaphor of not judging a book by its cover also applies to the three characters that Michel Bussi (author of the original novel that this graphic novel is based upon) introduces at the start of this intriguing mystery. There’s an almost Agatha Christie-like elegance combined with brutality in the staged planning and, ahem, execution of the crime indicated on the cover and on the...