Fernandez Britten is a ‘private researcher’ who has been dubbed ‘the heartbreaker’ for exposing the infidelities of his clients’ spouses. Discontent and deeply miserable, he craves serious cases. ‘Nowadays,’ he muses, ‘I don’t get out of bed for less than a murder. I don’t get out of bed much.’
His sidekick, Brulightly, is a lecherous, wisecracking teabag who convinces him to take on a case brought to them by a femme fatale who believes her fiancée’s death was not a suicide but a calculated murder. As he snoops around, Britten unravels a dangerous secret that connects his current case with the petty ones he investigated in the past.
Hannah Berry’s debut graphic novel is a beautifully executed affair, moody and mysterious in tone. The visual style is muted and the colours monochromatic, but what stands out is its resonant portrayal of a man in a mid-life crisis, seeking truth while drowning in an ocean of deceit. Berry paints a powerful psychological portrait of the effects of revenge and murder amid a rain-soaked London teeming with gothic mansions and forbidding forests. Although it borrows a great deal from film noir, ‘Britten & Brulightly’ is satisfying on an emotional level that transcends genre and takes on philosophical textures. It’s as startling and poetic as anything by Chandler or Hammett.
