Miss Don’t Touch Me


By Hubert & Kerascoet, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM)
ISBN:  978-1-56163-544-3

This slim tone contains a superb period murder mystery from creators probably best known in the English speaking world for working on Joann Sfar and Lewis Trondheim’s Dungeon series of fantasy books. Here fin de siècle Paris is being plagued by its very own Jack the Ripper – a knife wielding maniac dubbed “the Butcher of the Dances” because he picks his victims from the lower class girls who frequent suburban Tea-dances where young people gather.

Blanche is a maid in a fine house; pious, repressed and solitary, but her sister Agatha, also a maid in service in the same residence is fun-loving and vivacious. Together they share the attic room at the top of the house. When Blanche sees “the Butcher” at his bloody work through a crack in the wall, he also sees her. A few nights later she to finds Agatha dead, as if by her own hand, but Blanche knows what must really have happened…

Anxious to avoid scandal the mistress of the house dismisses her. Forced to fend for herself on the inhospitable streets, by a combination of detective enquiry and sheer luck Blanche finds a lead to the killer and secures a position in The Pompadour, one of the most exclusive brothels in the city. Catering to the rich and powerful elite, here she will find the Butcher and exact her revenge…

Originally published in France as La Vierge du Bordel and Du Sang sur le Mains this witty, knowing and hugely engaging adult murder-mystery cleverly reveals its layered secrets as our heroine finds a way to turn her virginal state and overwhelming frustration to her advantage amidst the decadent rich and sexually bored of Paris. She maintains her virtue against all odds, discovers the other side to a world she previously despised and valiantly achieves her goal even though it threatens to topple two empires…

Feeling much like an adult version of Frances Hodgson Burnett‘s 1905 novel A Little Princess, this is a saucy confection from writer/colorist Hubert and delightfully realized with great panache by Kerascoet which will delight a wide variety of grown-up readers.
© 2007 Dargaud by Kerascoet & Hubert. All Rights Reserved. Translation © 2007 NBM