Miss Don't Touch Me

Miss Don't Touch Me

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.

Florence is a maid in a fine house, pious, repressed and solitary, but her friend Agatha is fun-loving and vivacious. They share an attic room at the top of the house. When Florence sees the Butcher at work through a crack in the wall, he also sees her. She returns one night to find Agatha dead, as if by her own hand, but Florence knows what must really have happened…

Anxious to avoid scandal the mistress of the house dismisses Florence. Forced to fend for herself on the inhospitable streets, by a combination of detective enquiry and sheer luck she 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 murder-mystery cleverly unfolds as Florence 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.

Wim Wiacek