Review by Luke Williams
Eva Rojas has “quirks”. An irreverent, insouciant, and charming psychiatrist, living a slightly chaotic and chemically “enhanced” existence with perhaps only half an eye on her career. She is guided through life by the” ghosts” of three dead female relatives always on hand to lend advice, and where necessary criticism and approbation.
A patient of Eva’s, Penelope Monturos, has invited her to attend the reading of the living will of her grandmother as witness. Eva happily accepts without a second thought, but, sadly, she had not considered family politics and the jockeying for status and inheritance that comes with such events. Her presence is controversial, made worse when she becomes a suspect of murder as members of the family turn up dead. So, Eva takes it upon herself to find the murderer.
A murder mystery told in flashbacks via Eva relating the events to her psychiatrist, Eva’s ghosts are always on hand to offer her sage advice, or approbation. I Am Their Silence is, as a consequence, something of a cross between Murder She Wrote and touch of Randall and Hopkirk Deceased, but with better weather and food.
Eva is a likeable character, flippant, flirtatious, driven (on the point of being obsessive) and fearless. Creator Jordi Lafebre takes time to build up Eva’s back-story, with some sometimes heart wrenching flashbacks, and the script is well balanced with humour, wit and pathos.
As you’d expect in any murder mystery there is a lot of talking, but Lafebre effortlessly ensures that pages of conversations are striking to look at, moving the camera through different angles with clear and characterful body language, and clear but gentle rhythm to the page layouts. Script and art are playful, it’s wonderfully paced and there is a lightness in touch which makes the story an engaging read without reducing the gravity of events.
Like any good murder mystery, characters are introduced in turn, and time taken to introduce the cast without heavy handed exposition. The Monturos family in particular are well defined and fleshed out.
As Eva continues her investigation the cracks in the family relations become ever clearer as the body count rises and the mystery deepens.
A thoroughly entertaining, surprisingly light without being throwaway album, belied by its cryptic title.
Luke Williams
• I Am Their Silence by Jordi Lafebre | Translated by Montana Kane | Published by Europe Comics | Available as a digital edition from AmazonUK (Affiliate Link)
Barcelona born Jordi Lafebre debuted as an illustrator in 2001. He has contributed to magazines such as the Spanish Mister K, the legendary Belgian magazine Spirou and has frequently collaborated with Zidrou (Benoît Drousie) on a collective work La vieille dame qui n’avait jamais joué au tennis et autres nouvelles qui font du bien, and again in 2010 on the graphic novel Lydie (Dargaud; Europe Comics in English, 2018), and then in 2014, with the gritty La Mondaine(Europe Comics 2016, Vice Squad). Most recently the partnership have teamed up to create the album series Les Beaux étés.
Brought up on a diet of Commando, British Boys Annuals and Asterix, Lucas Williams’s day job limits his reading time. Luckily for everyone else this also restricts his writing time.
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