Fog Over Tolbiac Bridge : A Nestor Burma Mystery

Paris, 1950s. Nestor Burma’s past comes knocking when Belita, a young gypsy woman, leads him to the Salpetriere hospital where he discovers the recently deceased Abel Benoit, an old buddy from his anarchist days. While Burma has chosen to move onto the (more or less) straight and narrow as a private eye, his friend had stayed on the other side of the law as a counterfeiter and worse, until his own past caught up with him, lethally. So now it’s up to Malet to avenge his friend, keep the girl safe, and hopefully unravel a mystery whose roots run far and deep back into the past...Fog Over Tolbiac Bridge is the first of four major graphic novels adapted by Tardi from the legendary French crime writer Leo Malet’s original “Nestor Burma” novels — each set in Paris, and each taking place in, and defined by, a different arrondissement. Tardi’s stylish use of mechanical gray tones provides the book with a lovely period feel, and the very specific autobiographical elements of the original novel (Malet himself frequented the anarchist/vegan hostel that serves as the backdrop for the flashback sequences of Burma’s youth) combined with Tardi’s usual obsessive visual research give it a uniquely personal, authentic quality.Created in the 1980s, Fog Over Tolbiac Bridge was an historic attempt on Tardi’s part to inject a level of literary heft and ambition into the comics field, which back then was still struggling for legitimacy. The result is a cracking good detective yarn and a milestone in comics history.