RIC HOCHET VOLUME 3

"HOW TO COMMIT THE PERFECT MURDER"
Writer: Zidrou | Artist: Van Liemt | Colorist: Cerminaro

There are revelations galore in the opening pages of our latest RIC HOCHET installment! First off, the book opens with Ric and Nadine, who I had previously believed to be his platonic friend, in bed together. Not long after, we learn that the couple is engaged! Now, their relationship was not in any way a factor in either of the previous two stories, but still -- this seems like something that might have been mentioned once or twice.

But Commissioner Bourdon is apparently unaware of the fact that Ric and his niece are sleeping together (or possibly even unaware that they're engaged; it's hard to tell), because when he shows up to speak with Ric about a case, Nadine goes out her way to hide from him. The case, a recent string of murders rocking Paris, leads to our second unexpected revelation, as Ric goes to seek help from his father, Richard Hochet -- a "gentleman burglar" who hands out at a burlesque club with his cronies. Ric mentions that his dad showed up in ton "a few months ago," and that up until that point, he had believed himself an orphan. Not even Nadine knows about Ric's father until he tells her.

Again, this had no bearing on either of the prior adventures, and unlike the relationship between Ric and Nadine, is not something I would've expected to be commented upon in those tales. The only thing that confuses me here is -- when did this happen? As noted when I looked at volume one a couple weeks ago, that book was packed with footnotes referring readers to older RIC HOCHET stories. The second book had no such notes, but it also didn't make many (or any) references to past adventures, so I figured that was why. But if our protagonist learned at some point that his father was alive and he was not, as he had always believed, an orphan, you would think that might rate a note here! Anyway -- with those two large continuity nits out of the way, let's move along to the story proper. Ric believes the recent murders are the work of a serial killer and begins investigating; eventually he learns about a digest called HOW TO COMMIT THE PERFECT MURDER, available for sale alongside other do-it-yourself guides around Paris. This leads to a small-time crook named Webster, who has been distributing the books under orders from a mystery employer -- however the books all appear to be published by Marabout Publishing, located in Belgium. Ric writes an article calling out Marabout for publishing the books, while the police begin picking up every last copy to be found in Paris.

When Ric and Nadine head to Belgium to visit Marabout in person, they find that they have no friends there, with the entire staff angry at Ric over his article, which has resulted in a mass recall of all Marabout books in France and Belgium. But during their visit, the couple also learns that the HOW TO COMMIT THE PERFECT MURDER guide was indeed published at Marabout, without the knowledge of its directors. Ric and Nadine then split up to continue the investigation, with each interviewing a number of suspsects (so many, with motives aplenty, that Ric compares the publishing house to the court of Louis XIV).

Eventually, Ric utilizes that classic detective standby of gathering all the suspects in one location, where he dramatically reveals that they were all in on the crime, a conspiracy hatched to get back at their boss, who they beleive has lived off the wealth generated by their work for too long. And of course in the end, while they are arrested, Ric predicts that all will walk free in the end since technically the worst thing they did was use the company's resources after hours to print up their guidebook.

There's also a sub-plot in the story about a husband, frustrated by his nagging wife, who buys a copy of HOW TO COMMIT THE PERFECT MURDER and reads it in hopes of finding a way to off his wife -- but in the end, she finds the book and uses it instead, arranging an accident that claims her husband's life.

A small note on the book's final page informs readers who weren't aware(such as myself) that Marabout was a real publisher in the twentieth century (and still exists today as an imprint of Hachette), but that they did not actually publish a guide to committing murder. There's also a note from Simon Van Liemt, the artist of these three RIC HOCHET revival stories, in which he announces that he's leaving his studio after twenty years for new opportunities, so that presumably explains why there haven't been any further volumes in the series to date (this one was originally published in 2018).

I like HOW TO COMMIT THE PERFECT MURDER more than MURDER IN THE PARK, which some may recall left me cold last week. Strangely, I still find R.I.P., RIC! to be the best of the three, and it didn't even feature the real Ric Hochet for most of its story! Mind you, I like Ric -- I just found that particular story more engrossing than the subsequent two. Still, I would've enjoyed reading more of these if there were any further stories created -- and I'd love to go back and read some of the originals, should they ever find their way to an English translation.

Lastly, I was surprised to find in this story a few references to Bob Morane as a character published by Marabout. I have two BOB MORANE books in my Comixology library; they're a pair of recent European comics which looked interesting to me, and which I picked up in a sale some time back. I knew nothing about the character, but it turns out that, like Ric Hochet, Bob has existed for decades, having first appeared in novels, and having been adapted into TV, film, animation, and a series of more than fifty graphic novels! But unlike RIC HOCHET, Bob seems to evolve with the times like James Bond, as his recent adventures look to be set in the modern day.

Which is my way of saying that I might just read those two BOB MORANE books after I spend the next month on MISS OCTOBER -- which starts next week with volume one, PLAYMATES, 1961.