This book was a bit convoluted but the main mystery is intriguing enough.

A slice of life story about a rookie vice squad detective set in 1937 Paris. He's straight-laced and has some strange family problems. Not for everyone. Lots of sex ad nudity.

'Vice Squad Volume 1' by Zidrou with art by Jordi Lafebre is about a fish out of water who joins a new department in his police squad.

The book is framed by it's present which is taking place in the shelters underneath Paris as the Germans are bombing the city. Aime Louzeau is reminded of his time working in the Vice Squad. He didn't want to join the department, and he gets coerced into it. He is so straitlaced and his fellow officers, as he finds out, are corrupted by the crimes they are supposed to be stopping. Will Aime stay vigilant and uncorrupted?

The story is probably not going to be for everyone, and I'm not sure I'm that fond of it, but the art and story work very well together. I'm reminded of the Philippe Noiret film, My New Partner in tone.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Europe Comics and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

This was clearly not for me.
I did not like the drawings, the story left me completely indifferent when it didn’t annoy me and I found the characters pretty damn irritating.

A Parisian police inspector named Louzeau has transferred from Homicide to Vice. He has a lot to learn. The Vice Squad is more interested in collecting gossip than in putting an end to vice. When the gossip involves influential people, the top dogs in the police can use it to gain leverage. The Vice Squad is also more interested in viewing porn than suppressing it. But then, who isn’t? And in the time-honored tradition of vice cops everywhere, the Parisians don’t mind indulging in a bit of pleasure in exchange for their agreement not to arrest a pleasure-giver. But Louzeau is a bit of a stick in the mud, and his stick doesn’t ever seek to get pleasured. At least, not until he visits a bordello with his fellow vice officers and indulges in a bit of vice of his own.

Louzeau is an interesting mix of virtue and vice. His conflicted nature probably results from having a priest for a father … a priest who couldn’t remain true to his vow of celibacy. The cliché would be to have Louzeau come into the vice squad, be offended by its corruption, and clean up the dirty cops. Fortunately, there’s nothing clichéd about this story. Louzeau isn’t a bad guy, particularly when compared to his fellow officers, but he has a temper that is easily triggered, and he isn’t too moral to hit a woman.

The best touches in Vice Squad are the quirky things: the recurring theme of how things are always falling on you when you live in Paris; the facial expressions (I love the innocent bewilderment on Louzeau’s face whenever he encounters a naked woman and his goofy smile after getting laid); the contrast between a sweet woman who happens to be a prostitute and a crazy woman who performs in sex shows; the American Indian who pops up from time to time.

The art is blends cartoonish storytelling with atmospheric/noir panels and rich coloring. It works quite well. This is part 1 and it left me looking forward to part 2. If I could, I would give Vice Squad 4 1/2 stars.

A bit of a mess, narratively, with the artwork making it hard to keep characters distinct. Wouldn't rush back to the other half of the story.

Vice Squad is surely very Parisienne and bourgeois and dirty and suffocating at the same time. It's hard to say what the plot is and while reading this, I kept thinking that this makes no sense. For me it felt like the comic consists of smaller stories, these sequences, even though that probably wasn't the case as such or at least I had hard time connecting them together. The year is 1937 and Aimé Louzeau works as an inspector in Paris, but isn't really enjoying his job and thus asks for a transfer. Instead of killings and such, his work is now about following pimps and prostitutes. I really liked the free sex, dirtiness and the looming war behind everything. Survival is washed down with perverse and worn acts and only European comic makers can do it like this. You can even smell the cigarettes and the booze through the pages. The devil's fingerprints scene was pure marvelous. What I really liked about the comic is that it shows how nasty things have other sides and some of them can be beautiful and a choice worth to make.

The art is superb and the thin line art with deep and worn colors just scream for the 1930s. The structure of the comic isn't necessarily the best, but the art saves a lot. It's hard to follow what is happening and when, since the comic keeps skipping forward in weird spins. I do hope the second part will somehow wrap this up, since the comic is almost all over the place. Yet, at the same time Vice Squad is very thrilling and the art makes you follow it keenly, so Zidrou surely knows what he is doing.

This is a cool graphic novel. I love the art style. Solid storyline too!

There is a lot going on in this small volume. The opening scene depicts a vice detective in an underground bunker during WWII as Paris is being bombed. The primary story flashed back to his start in vice and the story further retreats to his childhood and his parents.