Graphic Novel Review – Monday Monday

From Goodreads:

It’s the case of a Swedish Werewolf in London, the unmissable next chapter in the life of full-time cop and part time wizard Peter Grant. Grant works as part of a very special London police unit investigating unusual crimes involving magic and the general weirdness that permeates London’s dark underbelly.

What starts as a routine undercover operation to break up an organised teenage pickpocket gang turns into something far more dangerous when the Metropolitan police are confronted by a Swedish werewolf who’ll stop at nothing to avoid capture. Now it’s up to Peter and his cohort of chums to hunt the deadly lycanthrope and bring him to justice!

I think this is my favourite of the comics so far. The plot is fairly simple and doesn’t actually have very much too it other than what is in the blurb, but that doesn’t matter. What is fantastic about this volumes is how much it focuses on the characters.

I really loved the style they did with this, each issue follows a different character along the same timeline of the story. We see the day from their perspective, including home life, internal thoughts and memories as they go about their role in the investigation. I loved that we got to see DI Stephanopolous perspective and that she is moving into the foreground as a character. I really liked getting to see glimpses of her home life and how she operates on the job. We got more of Nightingale and his school day memories and of course Peter’s perspective is told. We also interestingly got Foxglove’s perspective (a side character from Novel 7, Lies Sleeping) who doesn’t talk so the use of the panels to tell the story without dialogue for her perspective was really well constructed.

I am of course invested in these characters I have followed them for 8 novels, 3 novellas and now 9 graphic novels. This probably explains the emotional response I had to the stories told here, but this issue had me laughing then three panels later in tears over events. The construction and timing of the panels, the use of those with and without dialogue to show the emotional gamut that Peter and the other characters are experiencing was just perfect. We just get such a great mix of funny little moments and emotional moments from the characters, that were so full of subtle detail in the drawings. Its just so interesting to get a Graphic novel that is so character driven instead of action driven in the way the story is constructed. It was a fantastic read.