To The Last Page

Although it’s set in 1948, The Other Side of the Border comes at an opportune time, a thriller set on the US border with Mexico showing how life, the problems and crime in the region probably haven’t changed a lot over the years. Other than efforts at hardening the border under the most recent US administration, the issues and inequalities remain much the same for people living on either side of the border, and in such a place crime is not just inevitable, for some it’s a necessity, a way of life. The 2020 graphic novel one-shot The Other Side of the Border  scripted by Jean-Luc Fromental with art by Philippe Berthet highlights the discrepancy between the two cultures immediately, bringing in a French/Belgian perspective through an author of detective novels living in the Santa Cruz valley. Known as “the French Edgar Wallace”, François Combe lives a free and somewhat reckless lifestyle at the Stallion Farm. Although married with a young child, it’s common knowledge that he also ha...

I’m not sure whether it would be an advantage or a disadvantage to have seen Carol Reed’s 1949 thriller The Third Man before reading Jean-Luc Fromental and Miles Hyman’s The Czech Coup , as the graphic novel is very much based around Graham Greene’s writing of the film. It’s hard to imagine any circumstance where lack of familiarity with one of the greatest films of post-WWII, pre-Cold War espionage and morality could be seen as an advantage, but familiarity with Carol Reed’s masterpiece does automatically put The Czech Coup at the disadvantage of being compared to a work that it can never match. While it might be no match as a thriller, there is nonetheless some interest in exploring or imagining what might have inspired the work and might been going on in the background to its creation. Graham Greene, as well as being one of Britain’s greatest writers known for his spy and war thrillers as well as for his more personal literary dramas, was indeed involved with British Intelligence ...