I was talking with someone about mysteries the other day. She was saying that she really likes to see the process of deduction unfold and to understand how the stories’ sleuths reach their conclusions. I like that, too, but I’m more than willing to let some plot holes slide if the sleuth is appealing company.

So I’m very happy with the titular implications of Past Lies: An Amy Devlin Mystery (Oni Press). They suggest to me that this book the first of a series, and while it’s far from perfect as a mystery, Amy is a terrific character. She’s got legs, and I’m eager to see her next case.

Writers Christina Weir and Nunzio DeFilippis have done a great job in developing a sympathetic, interesting sleuth. Amy is far from the conventionally dissipated, cynical private investigator. She’s young and bright, an English major who got into the field on a lark and found she had a knack for it. She’s funny and a quick thinker. There’s just the right balance between instinctual skill and inexperience. Amy is on a learning curve; sometimes her instincts pay off, and sometimes she blunders into roadblocks.

There are plenty of hurdles in her latest case. A young actor on the verge of a career breakthrough asks Amy to investigate a legendary Hollywood murder because he believes he was the victim in a past life. The actor hopes that solving the crime will help him reconcile his past life with his present, as do his boyfriend and hypnotherapist. (It’s Los Angeles, after all.)

This brings Amy into contact with the victim’s family and friends – the merry widow, alienated daughter, sleazy brother, and sneaky lawyer. She also runs afoul of Detective Duggan, the keeper of the cold case files at the local precinct. Weir and DeFilippis introduce the large cast very effectively, finding interesting variations on well-heeled creepiness.

The mechanics of the plot aren’t quite as strong as the characterization. The mystery sprawls a bit, and Weir and DeFilippis might have added two or three twists too many. But the real fun here is watching Amy improvise and spar, whether it’s with a crusty, critical cop or a sleazy suspect. Her reactions are often surprising but always believable, and she holds the story together.

I found myself really liking Christopher Mitten’s illustrations. They’re angular and somewhat stylized, but the character design is generally strong, and he gives the book a sunny, so-Cal sense of place. He keeps up nicely with the twists and turns the authors throw his way, and the storytelling is always clear, even when the plot gets a little muddy.

There’s a lot to like about Past Lies, but the best part is the potential for future adventures with Amy Devlin. Weir and DeFilippis do great work introducing her to readers, and they’ve left me wanting more.

(The above is based on a review copy provided by Oni Press.)

I’m not quite sure how to approach Hope Larson’s Gray Horses (Oni), which arrives in comic shops today. Conventional critical language doesn’t seem quite right, not because the book is so wildly experimental as to make that approach inadequate, or that it can’t withstand that kind of scrutiny.

The difficulty reminds me of high-school English class, of all things. The constant, structured hunt for symbolism and meaning seemed designed to make students never want to read a book again, at least not for pleasure. And if a book did resonate, the sensation had usually faded by the time the final essays had been handed back. There didn’t seem to be any space to actually feel anything about the books.

And Larson’s work deserves so much better than the kind of critique I usually crank out. Gray Horses seems less like a graphic novel than a confidence between friends. It’s a soothing, generous experience that I think will vary greatly from reader to reader. It’s got its own voice, but it also invites readers to chime in with their own.

Larson has a wonderful way of communicating a sensory experience – the smell of lilacs, the warmth of sunlight on skin, or the lulling rumble of a train. She’s also gifted at showing how those sensations interact with emotion and memory. Waking moments can take on a dreamlike feel, while the portrayal of actual dreams can have an unexpected clarity and urgency.

When the protagonist, exchange student Noémie, dozes on a train, I’m in the moment, but I’m also remembering similar instances from my own life when I was exploring someplace new. When she calls an old boyfriend in the wee hours of the morning, it’s recognizably wistful and awkward, as the words curve and tangle across the page. It’s all so different but so familiar, like déjà vu rendered in black, white, and tan.

I feel kind of badly for the person who had to write the back-cover text, because Gray Horses seems impossible to summarize in a paragraph, or at all. I’d have been tempted to say, “Just read it. Trust me.”

Because no matter what I say about it, I don’t think any other reader will have precisely the same response. Larson seems to have met me exactly halfway, leaving warm and comfortable room for my own thoughts, feelings, and memories. And that’s a wonderful thing to be able to say about a graphic novel.

(These comments are based on a preview copy from Oni Press that arrived last night, roughly 24 hours before I’ll pick up the copy that I pre-ordered through the comic shop. That means I have one to give away, so watch for a mini-contest in the next couple of days.)

The second volume of Scott Chantler’s Northwest Passage (Oni) plunges along while raising the levels of action, danger, and interpersonal conflict. It’s even better than the first, which I thought was very, very good.

Adventurer-turned-bureaucrat Charles Lord is turned out of Fort Newcastle by his vicious longtime nemesis, Guerin Montglave. As a small band of survivors races to safety, Lord searches through Rupert’s Land for reinforcements from his exploring days. Meanwhile, back at the captured fort, Montglave assumes brutal control and tries to manipulate Lord’s resentful half-Cree son, Simon.

Yes, I just used the phrase, “Meanwhile, back at the captured fort…” And you know what? I meant it. It’s that kind of book, and it’s very satisfying.

While Chantler did a fine job with a great deal of exposition in the first chapter, it’s nice to have it out of the way so he can focus more on story and character. He packs a lot of both into 88 pages, filling in detail on the histories and interpersonal dynamics of his cast while providing plenty of “Pulse-Pounding Western Action,” as the cover promises.

Chantler continues with his subtle exploration of Lord’s successes and failures as a leader. It’s a relevant thematic thread, but it isn’t an overwhelming one. Chantler never pulls out the Message Hammer, thanks in part to his willingness to acknowledge Lord’s flaws. The juxtaposition of “good” Lord and “evil” Montglave is more effective because of the things they have in common as authority figures.

At the same time, he layers the story with historical detail. Chantler informs events with observations about class, race, politics, and commerce, which make things even more satisfying. Northwest Passage is first and foremost an adventure comic, but it takes full advantage of its period and setting.

Chantler’s work as an illustrator is sterling, but that’s not surprising. His appealingly open style has proved to be wonderfully flexible, suiting a wide variety of stories and tones. Northwest Passage is no exception. There’s genuine excitement in the adventure scenes, tension to the suspense, and nuance in the character-driven moments.

What’s more surprising is that this is Chantler’s writing debut. It’s a rich, exciting story with a great balance of narrative elements.

(Possibly unnecessary spoiler warning: The central plot development in Polly and the Pirates was revealed in some of the book’s promotional coverage, but I’m going to restate it here. Just be forewarned.)

I have a well-documented weakness for characters I would call “blurters,” people whose natural honesty leads them to rattle off uncomfortable, impolitic observations in less-than-ideal circumstances. I’m happy to see that the protagonist of Ted Naifeh’s Polly and the Pirates (Oni Press) carves her own funny niche in this category.

Polly-Ann Pringle is a proper young girl attending boarding school in St. Helvetia, an exotic, seaside city. Faultlessly honest and dutiful, she’s trying to emulate her late mother, described by her father as “the most graceful and proper lady that ever was.” Her more adventuresome schoolmates (they read “novels”!) view her with varying degrees of fondness and frustration.

She seems almost eager to live a predictable, appropriate life. Unfortunately, her mother wasn’t always the pillar of propriety that’s been described. One night, Polly is kidnapped from her dormitory by pirates who are looking for the heir of their former captain, Meg Malloy. They need a new leader, and they’ve settled on Polly, Meg’s daughter.

It’s a charmingly absurd set-up, not just because of the generic notion of a pre-teen pirate queen. Polly seems a particularly bad choice for buccaneer because of her conservative approach to life. Her first exchange with the pirates illustrates this nicely, as she bluntly assesses their morals and personal hygiene.

The first issue is given over to setting up the premise, and if pre-release publicity has taken away some of the element of surprise, it hasn’t done anything to undermine the book’s charm. Polly is a very promising protagonist (alliteration alert!), because she has somewhere to go. Her disposition isn’t suited to a life of adventure on the high seas, but her legacy might not leave her any choice. It should be great fun to watch her adjustment unfold.

I love Naifeh’s art. He’s given Polly an open, serious face that’s alternately childlike and a little forbidding. In fact, the whole visual sense could be described that way, from character design to sense of place. The illustrations are precise and engaging, and they’re layered with a wonderful use of shading. (Keith Wood collaborated with Naifeh on the design; I’m not sure how his contributions break down, but I wouldn’t want to exclude him, because the book looks great.)

Polly and the Pirates gets off to a fine start. It has a fun, solid premise, appealing characters, and terrific illustrations.

Is it strange to praise a graphic novel for its restraint? It’s not intended faintly, and it isn’t just a reaction to a summer of comics that’s had more bombast than substance. It’s a quality that I genuinely admire, and in the case of Capote in Kansas (Oni), it makes for deeply satisfying reading.

The book, written by Andre Parks and illustrated by Chris Samnee, navigates a veritable mine field of sensational material without ever indulging. Parks and Samnee follow novelist Truman Capote as he conducts research for the non-fiction novel that would be his masterpiece, In Cold Blood. The Clutters, a Kansas farm family, have been brutally murdered in their home, and Capote has chosen the tragedy as the subject for his next project.

Parks doesn’t simply adapt Capote’s work for the comic medium. The Clutter tragedy was already expertly documented by Capote himself, and Parks notes that there seems to be little point in covering the same ground. Parks also avoids an examination of Capote’s creative process, at least as it might be conventionally viewed.

Capote in Kansas isn’t about the creation of a literary masterpiece; it’s about a complicated man’s attempts to connect with a community that’s numb with grief and shaken by horror. The details of this process, which Parks admits to handling with dramatic license, are affecting, subtle, and surprising.

When we first meet Capote, he is employing the kind of measured social provocation he’s mastered over the years. At a dinner party, he’s waffling between two possible projects, a satirical expose of high society and the Clutter story. He opts for the latter, seeing an opportunity to expand his literary horizons and experiment with his notion of the non-fiction novel. He enlists his childhood friend Harper Lee, an author on the verge of publishing her own masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Upon arriving in the Clutters’ community, Capote’s expectations of the experience are almost immediately overturned. The qualities that serve him so well in Manhattan – wit, flamboyance, literary celebrity – hold no currency in Garden City, Kansas. Beyond the obstacles posed by the community’s reception, he’s shaken by his own arrogance. The town spurs memories of his small-town upbringing, and past and present each pose their own challenges.

It’s a largely internal struggle, as Capote tries to find resources in himself not only to reach out to the people of Garden City but to do them justice. His literary ambitions lose ground in face of the quiet dignity of his subjects. He gradually learns to modulate his approach, but there’s nothing opportunistic about it. It’s a subtle, sincere transformation, very engrossingly portrayed.

Samnee’s illustrations are perfect for this kind of material. Sometimes, black and white can be more effective than a full palette, and I think that’s the case here. Samnee is deft in his use of shadows, and his sense of composition is terrific. He has a particular knack for facial expressions, capturing Capote’s wry twinkle or a citizen’s crumpled mask of grief.

For all of the scope of the events covered in Capote in Kansas – literary genius, horrifying violence, and so on — Parks never indulges in sensationalism, focusing instead on the complex, deeply personal emotions that inform these events. It’s a surprising approach, and Parks and Samnee execute it beautifully. It’s one of the best graphic novels I’ve read this year.

(This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by Oni Press.)

Warning: the comments below contain spoilers.

For their 25th issue, the Queen and Country Players proudly present a staged reading of Carrie Fisher’s Postcards from the Edge.

Tara Chace takes a bit of time off to visit her mother, much to the chagrin of both. See, Tara finds her mother gratingly self-indulgent and immature. Mumsy is marrying a man half her age, much to Tara’s consternation.

There isn’t much balance between the opposing forces, really. Mother Chace seems like a decent enough broad — a little selfish, but living the way she pleases with available means. Tara’s criticisms seem sulky and misplaced; her mother seems to have a much more reasonable grasp of the situation.

So, the consequence is that Tara spends most of the double-sized issue being a pouty brat, threatening her mother’s fiancé and snarling at her mother. And what are we meant to learn from this? Did Tara go into service to avoid the horrible fate of becoming like her mother? Is Tara punishing her mother by constructing a life that doesn’t make her happy or fulfilled?

It’s always risky when a piece of serial fiction strays from its formula. QUEEN AND COUNTRY has always been more of a procedural than a character study, though the reader can learn a great deal about the cast while watching them work. When a procedural sinks deeper into the personal lives of its cast, it should be for a concrete purpose. After a couple of readings, I’m still not clear what writer Greg Rucka had in mind with this outing.

As a final note, I really can’t stand the un-translated dialogue in this book. Tara is obviously the point-of-view character, the access point, and it would be more sensible for the reader to be able to understand what she does. (If she runs across conversation in a language she doesn’t know, fine. That would be fair enough.) The use of extensive, un-translated passages in this issue seemed pretentious, and while I could figure out what was happening in context, they took me out of the story.

Hopefully, things will be back to business next issue. Then, maybe in issue 50, they can do a riff on One True Thing.