The One Hand & The Six Fingers by Ram V (writer, The One Hand), Laurence Campbell (artist, The One Hand), Dan Watters (writer, The Six Fingers), Sumit Kumar (artist, The Six Fingers), Lee Loughridge (colorist), and others. Image, 2024. 9781534359719. 280pp. Contains #1 – #5 of each series. Publisher’s Rating: Mature.
This book contains two series from Image that form one graphic novel. Both take place in the same time and place: Neo Novena, 2873.
In one, Detective Aris Nassar cancels his retirement to see a case through, the case of the One Hand Killer. Nassar is sure he has caught the killer twice, but there’s a new crime scene, and symbols found at previous crime scenes have been drawn on a wall along with a handprint. But this time the handprint is slightly different, which leads Nassar to believe the killer has six fingers.
In the other narrative, Johannes Vale, an archaeology grad student, proposed an expedition to a mine his father explored long ago. He has an artifact his father brought him, an arrowhead made of an unknown material, and wants to go look for evidence of an undiscovered branch of civilization. But his presentation about it doesn’t go well. And then he has a bad shift at his day job, which exposes him to toxic chemicals. There’s evidence that repeated exposure has mutated him a bit already; he’s growing an extra finger on one hand. Then Johannes wanders along a path he took the night before, and arrives at the wall he drew symbols on. He asks himself why he did what he did, and as Nasar hunts for him, that question becomes Vale’s thesis.
From there, it’s a gritty back-and-forth. It’s so dark it reminds me of Ellis and Templesmith’s Fell, though it’s not funny, and it has Balde Runner-esque details, too. It’s a lovely book if you’re into this sort of whodunnit/whydunnit, and it’s a great value at just under $20.
