Gil St André #1

The opening album of this Belgian thriller series sets an immediately compelling tone: a cool-headed man in an orange jacket advances with pistol raised against a stark white background, while the lower half of the cover plunges into an urgent close-up of two alarmed figures — one with wide, startled eyes and round glasses — framed by a moody city street scene. Jean-Charles Kraehn's cover art neatly captures the split between the calm, purposeful investigator and the rattled witnesses or suspects who populate his world. "Een vreemde verdwijning" ("A Strange Disappearance") promises a stylish, grounded mystery that fans of European crime comics will want to follow from the very first page.