The detection club part 1 by Jean Harambat.
In 1930s England, the best mystery writers of the era come together to form the Detection Club. G. K. Chesterton, Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr and others gather to eat, drink, and challenge one another. They are in for a bigger test, however, when eccentric billionaire Roderick Ghyll invites them all to his mansion on a private island off the coast of Cornwall, promising to enchant them with his latest creation: a robot that can predict the culprit in their novels. But when someone ends up murdered, who will lead the investigation? Jean Harambat is back, following the success of “Operation Copperhead,” with a hilarious, satirical take on the classic crime novel.
A very good read. I liked the pictures in the book and the story. 4*.

A great mystery story premise with vivid illustrations.
I highly recommend this graphic novel.
I voluntarily reviewed an advance reader copy of this book.

On paper "The Detection Club" had all the ingredients to be a hit with me. Sadly, it was a bit of a miss. While I found the premise quite interesting, with a nod to one of my all time favorite novels, "And then there were none", the actual plot was a bit weak and not developed enough (those small paragraphs of text here and there were greatly appreciated). I understand this is graphic novel with just around a hundred pages, so not all characters can have the same weight in the story, but some of the club members were mere spectators, centering the investigation in Agatha Christie and G.K. Chesterton. This pairing worked pretty well with some witty dialogue and retorts. The art was quite nice.

Thanks to Netgalley and Europe Comics for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Pastiches and parodies are not easy to do well, and you could say that Harambat has set himself a herculean task here. Yet, on the whole, I think he has accomplished his goals very well. The Detection Club members are entertainingly depicted, and the writer has avoided over-revering them. They are not portrayed as infallible and they wonderfully rub each other up the wrong way. None of them are mealy-mouthed, so if they have something to say then they will say it! The humour is well-crafted, and this is a story that you will laugh out loud with, when reading.

The story is also a nod to classic crime more generally – with two notable examples being Christie’s And Then There Were None and Carr’s Crooked Hinge. The recitation of Knox’s rules is no matter of mere padding and as the reader progresses through the comic they will see how the plot intersects these various rules. This area is handled deftly by the writer, ensuring that the plot can withstand such additions. Though it must be said that you mustn’t take things too seriously!

Harambat often focuses on the Detection Club members in pairs, which is a strength of the way the story is told. Chesterton and Christie are one such pairing, which worked really well, as both have an impressive repertoire of retorts for one another. The latter third of Part 1 and Part 2 of the comic reveal the detective fiction writers trying to uncover the truth behind Ghyll’s death and I think a good job has been made of differentiating their methods. Carr gets stuck into the “how” of the crime, though unfortunately no one wants to look at his detailed map of the house. Whilst Christie uses conversation as a means of eliciting motives. None of them are perfect detectives. Blunders and failures gleefully present themselves for the readers’ enjoyment. Tensions run high so it is not surprising that some of the Detection Club members accuse each other. The final solution, given the diverse elements of the crime, was very fitting and the epilogue is endearingly sweet.

I only have two niggles with the comic. The first is the characterisation of Dorothy L. Sayers. Whilst I appreciate that the story cannot give the same amount of time to all of the Detection Club members, I think she gets too overlooked. Moreover, I think she is shown to be too quiet and too un-proactive, which for me, didn’t really fit with the person which comes through in her various writings. My second niggle is an odd one. Normally I often bemoan writers who pad their works out, yet I find myself here wishing that Part 2 of the story could have been expanded. I feel there was definitely room for expansion within the plot.

However, as my final rating shows this is a highly recommended title, which I hugely enjoyed and found to be a lot of laugh-out-loud fun! I really hope more titles will be forthcoming in the series.