Le Secret de l'étrangleur #[nn]

Tardi's stark black-and-white linework sets an immediately unsettling noir mood on this Casterman album, adapted from Siniac's work. The cover shows a heavyset figure in a dark overcoat and flat cap facing away from us, hands raised toward a startled bespectacled man caught mid-gesture on a rain-slicked street — tension coiled in every crosshatched shadow. It's a beautifully grim 2006 collaboration between two sharp French crime talents that fans of hard-boiled, atmospheric storytelling will want on their shelf.