REVIEW: Britten and Brülightly, Artwork and Story by Hannah Berry

Brit­ten and Brü­lightly is a graphic novel by Han­nah Berry and pub­lished by Met­ro­pol­i­tan books and priced at $20 U.S. edi­tion. This is Ms. Berry’s first graphic novel about a pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor who learns that a few secrets are some­times best left buried.

Berry’s debut graphic novel has been gen­er­ously praised by UK pub­li­ca­tions like The Guardian say­ing that “…Han­nah Berry con­jures up exactly the right noir atmos­phere.” That quote is about as accu­rate as it gets and I like noir. But what struck my eye about this graphic novel was the cover and I like a good mur­der mys­tery and this one delivers.

Fer­nán­dez Brit­ten is a pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor who aims at “serv­ing human­ity and right­ing wrongs.” After ten years, he is weary of the clien­tele who seek his ser­vices: jeal­ous lovers and venge­ful peo­ple look­ing for dirt. To his way of think­ing, more than half already sus­pect the out­come and for his efforts, he’s earned the nick­name of “heart­breaker” because he rarely gives good news.

Britten’s part­ner, Stew­art Brü­lightly, rec­om­mends that they start being a bit more “dis­crim­i­nat­ing” and for once he gets a case that proves to be a lot of leg­work with research that makes him reex­am­ine his role in right­ing the wrong’s of humanity.

Char­lotte Naughton, the daugh­ter of a pub­lisher, asks Brit­ten to inves­ti­gate the death of her fiancé, Bertie Kudos, who she sus­pects was mur­dered even though his demise was offi­cially ruled a suicide.

Brit­ten along with his “uncon­ven­tional part­ner” Brü­lightly delve into the explo­sive secrets of a family’s past and what he finds out is that it’s a tan­gled mess that involves loss, betrayal, black­mail and murder.

The story seems to be set in Lon­don and has a strong noir feel to it that imme­di­ately draws the reader right into the story. The author uses muted col­ors along with black and white to draw her char­ac­ters and set­ting in sharp relief. Some scenes really strike out at you. The nar­ra­tion is in cur­sive which at times proved dif­fi­cult to deci­pher. I also found Britten’s part­ner, a bit of an enigma because he’s a teabag.

The story is suf­fused with black humor and is at times emo­tion­ally taut. I waited on the edge of my seat for the dénoue­ment. The end­ing wasn’t hint­ing at a sequel but there could eas­ily be one. But the story arc was essen­tially resolved by the time the last page was turned. I enjoyed the story for what it was and wouldn’t mind revis­it­ing Brit­ten and his part­ner to see what case of moral ambi­gu­ity they entan­gle them­selves up in next. B.

For read­ers inter­ested in this book, you can see sam­ple chap­ters of Brit­ten and Brü­lightly at the publisher’s website.