Description: Is lovely Mariel Imari the world's greatest detective, or just the laziest? Don't commit a crime in beautiful Venice...unless you want to find out!
Drawn in Kenji Tsuruta's (Emanon, Wandering Island, Captain Momo's Secret Base) elegant black-and-white linework, this mystery manga features foldout cover (French flaps) with wraparound painted cover art, 30 pages of interior art illustrated in beautiful watercolors, all in an oversized format. Stroll along the banks of the canals in beautiful Venice, Italy, and you'll see the slacker--a young woman noodling on her guitar, pecking a bit at her laptop, and maybe getting a little reading in. But watch your step in this ancient town, because some of the other people you might run into--the ragged derelict, the drunken streetwalker, even that clean-cut gondolier--they're all her, too! She's Mariel Imari, of Italian and Japanese descent, whose skill at disguise comes from being part of a famous dynasty of detectives. She's even done an internship at Scotland Yard, where she solved 18 murders in three months! So why is her office on the canal bank, and her residence a hovel full of stray cats? Why doesn't she get to live in her family's ancestral Venetian mansion...instead of getting kicked out of it every morning by her butler, once she's finished breakfast? It's because Mariel hasn't yet cracked the one case that would allow her to inherit her grandfather's estate--Forget-me-not, the painting stolen from the mansion 22 years ago, which she needs to recover as a condition of his will. You see, Mariel is brilliant, but Mariel is also a bit lazy and slovenly and bored...and about to be a bit embarrassed, too when her sisters show up from Japan, under the impression that Mariel is rich! Will Mariel ever catch the master thief standing between her and an aristocratic lifestyle...and does she really want to...? For mature audiences.Review Quotes: Praise for Kenji Tsuruta:
"His work always glows with a sense of wonder and beauty. He observes his characters with keen affection, and they in turn observe the world around them, teeming with possibility. Over the years, Tsuruta's lush illustrations have only grown lovelier."--Shaenon Garrity, Otaku USA