The first volume of Aki Irie's Go With the Clouds North by Northwest (don't look at me, I didn't name the book), seems as though it's going to ease us into things. Kei Miyama is of Japanese and French descent, living in Iceland with his grandfather Jacques. When Kei works, it's as a seeker of sorts. You contact him if you want something or someone found. Also, Kei can speak to mechanical things, and they can respond. He seems to have to touch them, and there's typically a series of sparks or electricity drawn, though I think that's just a representation of the otherworldliness of his ability, and not something that visibly occurs. The mechanical things aren't given voice balloons or anything, Kei just always repeats aloud what they say.
There's no explanation for this ability other than Jacques mention odd powers run in their family. He has some sort of connection to the minds of birds. An ability to alter their perception, or see through their eyes. When a group of birds swirl around him, he explains he's made it so they see him as a strong wind that will carry them where they want to go.
It seems purposeful that Kei locates things of great importance for others, while being rather closed off and distant himself. Irie draws him frequently looking at people out of the corner of his eye, and often looking down at them and the reader when a cold expression. You could wonder what's of importance to him.
And for the first half of the book, that's pretty much what there is. Kei finding things and seeming either perplexed or annoyed at other people, and his grandfather carrying on a relationship with an actress he met. Then it takes a swerve in a direction I did not anticipate at all.
Kei's younger brother lives in Japan with their aunt and uncle, but suddenly Kei can't reach him by phone, and the line at the house is disconnected. A hurried flight to Japan reveals the uncle and aunt are both dead, of sickness and a car accident, and Michi is missing. Returning to Iceland, Kei gets the shit kicked out of him by a cop who was a friend of his uncle's. Said cop insists Michi killed both of them, and is uninterested in Kei's insistence of his brother's innocence. Lo and behold, Michi shows up to help Kei home right after the cop stalks off.
It feels as though Irie is working hard to make us think Michi is a killer. Beyond the cop's statement, and the remarks of Lilja, a young woman (who is kind of odd and drawn with an otherwordly quality herself) Kei's met that Michi's voice has an impure quality that suggests he's lying. His explanation for why he did or didn't do certain things when his uncle got sick is pretty weak. There's this whole thing that Michi is really attached to his big brother, and jealously tries to hoard his attention, via a flashback where Kei is looking at a cool bug, and Michi immediately squashes it and asks if that makes him cooler. And Michi's drawn with this near-angelic expression, with huge sad eyes and almost sparkles around his face. Like in a cartoon when some character tries really hard to demonstrate their innocence.
That last may not mean anything, though, since just about everyone (certainly all the major characters) are drawn as being beautiful, or at least ruggedly handsome in Jacques' case. Pretty people and the murders they get up to.
If Irie is trying to make it a mystery in the reader's mind, I think this is a whiff. It leans too hard into all the suspicious or circumstantial behavior. Unless we're expected to doubt the cop because he's a violent asshole who assaults teenagers for refusing to answer questions. But it seems more likely the point is that Kei can't or won't see the truth because it's his brother, and the question will be what it will take for him to remove the blinders.
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