Lost in the Alps

Mystery, adventure and romance mingle in Swiss comics artist Cosey's (In Search of Shirley) latest graphic novel. In 1929, British writer Melvin Z. Woodworth arrives in the tiny Alpine village of Ardolaz in the Valais region in search of the grave of his half-brother. Dragan, a musician, had left home years before to pursue his art and found in Ardolaz renewed inspiration--inspiration that Woodworth also seeks for his new novel. Very quickly, Woodworth encounters Baptistin, a Robin Hood-like figure legendary in the region for his counterfeiting expertise and for keeping one step ahead of two frustrated and comic gendarmes. Woodworth also happens upon a beautiful young woman bathing in a stream, who disappears even as the strains of one of his brother's piano compositions mysteriously emanate from the village's abandoned Grand Hotel. An Alpine glacier looms over these events, threatening the entire village with avalanche, ultimately bringing Woodworth, Baptistin and the young woman together and revealing the truth about Dragan's life. Cosey tells his story in brisk, amusing dialogue mixing in the details of Alpine village life, a perilous mountain chase and a sweet, albeit overly happy ending. His black-and-white drawings translate the mountain region and its 19th-century village architecture into beautifully spare patterns of wintry abstraction. (Mar.)