Lost Girl

A few frissons do not add up to a complete thriller in the latest graphic novel from British artist Nabiel Kanan (Exit). While on vacation with her parents somewhere in the British countryside, teenage and bourgeois Beth befriends a young punk who lives by her wits. Her new, nameless pal sleeps with strangers and steals cars; their brief acquaintance ignites a longing within Beth, but no sooner does she smoke her first joint and ride bareback than it is time to return home and face the new school year. Or will she? Once home, Beth unlocks the attic door and discovers that it leads to the field where she frolicked with her friend. This disappointing attempt at surrealism is at odds with the rest of the novel's hyperrealism, especially given the artist's geometric, black-and-white drawings. Kanan's panels capture a strong Hitchcockian feeling: the juxtaposition of the two main characters in the opening evokes Strangers on a Train, the stranger peering through a curtain recalls Rear Window and the punk's possible dual identity brings to mind Marnie. But his refusal to answer any of the tale's larger questions and his inability to combine these elements into one organic whole provide no satisfying payoff. (May)