After having read and reviewed Harker #7, the first issue of the second arc, I was glad to have the chance to read the first arc featuring Roger Gibson and Vincent Danks’s cantankerous, chain-smoking, kipper-eating British copper. This first story, The Key of Solomon, is chockfull of the character and personality on display in the second arc. However, the way the story goes about unraveling the central mystery feels unsatisfying in the final analysis.

The story starts with the brutal murder of a man and the subsequent discovery of his horribly mangled corpse on the premises of the British Museum. As investigators of multiple murders, DCI Harker and his assistant DS Critchley are called in to investigate. Critchley is convinced that the crime has something to do with the occult, but Harker isn’t convinced by the evidence. The case leads the duo (and the droll pathologist Griffin) to satanic orgies and longstanding resentments among some of the local middle and upper class.

The setup is actually very compelling even though it’s firmly rooted in procedural crime dramas. In fact, Gibson takes advantage of the introduction to tell us that he and Danks created the character of Harker as a pastiche of some of their favorite TV detectives. As a result, he’s established as a series of quirks and tics that would be off-putting if Gibson hadn’t invested the character with a dry, droll likeability.

Critchley, too, is interesting to watch. Whereas Harker is crotchety and unfiltered, Critchley is suave and charming--but also a little bit of a rogue looking for excitement. The simple character contrasts are, again, the stuff of TV dramas--and Gibson and Danks exploit them because they work. Griffin is the only one I don’t really have a handle on due to her having very few scenes with our detecting duo. She’s a dry, comic voice who uses gallows humor to help defuse the gruesome moments in the morgue and at crime scenes.

The problems with the book only come in when you start picking apart the actual execution and investigation of the mystery. Without spoiling anything, the structure essentially has Harker playing skeptic for most of the book and finally kind of stumbling into the resolution through sheer happenstance. It feels unrewarding after the fact, and resolution diminishes Harker a bit in terms of making him a veteran cop. I hope the current arc running through the ongoing comic develops its central mystery a bit more solidly and allows the title character to put his mind to use.

While the book is somewhat hampered by the loose structure of the mystery, it’s more than made up for not only by the quality and charm of the characters but by Danks’s clean, impressive line work with the art.

Danks makes it all look good. His characters are expressive and the action is easy to follow. Most importantly, even though I suspect Danks uses some photo references (and there’s nothing wrong with that), his figures are alive and not creepily stiff anchors for the word balloons to hang from.

For more information on Harker and to purchase copies, check out arielpress.com.

If you liked this review, be sure to check out more of the author’s work at Monster In Your Veins

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