It's 1953 and a British man working at Scotland Yard gets a call that his mother has just died in a hit and run with a bomb on her even though she's supposed to be in a nursing home. He begins to find out about a secret life she had involving Yugoslavia. I should have liked this but it was all boring, complicated info dumps that left me struggling to finish. The art isn't very good either.

This book has too many twists and turns and I will not even try to convey them in a brief review. Just know this, the book starts with Alex holding a bomb, then flashes back to his mother's death. Strike that. His mother's assassination. That's where the twists and turns start. Why would anyone kill Alex's mother, who was senile? It is the quest for this answer that will keep you turning pages.

'The Roots of Chaos, Volume 1: Lux' by Felipe Hernández Cava with art by Bartolomé Seguí tells a story about how we sometimes don't know those who seem to be the closest to us.

In March of 1953, Marshal Tito is visiting London. A man named Alexander walks the streets with a bomb that is intended for Tito.

From here we flash back to Alexander, a scientist working for Scotland Yard with an ailing mother. When his mother is found dead miles from the home she is in, Alexander is drawn in to a shadowy world filled with thugs, secret agents, and a handful of blank postcards. It seems his mother may have been in possession of a bomb of her own at the time of her death, and that her death may not have been the accident that it first appeared to be.

The story took a while to engage me, and the art was just ok. The people had a harsh and hollow look to them. Just as the story was moving along, it ends. Perhaps the story improves in the next volume.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Europe Comics and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

3.5 stars for the artwork (would have been 4 if the hero didn't - inadvertantly, I presume - look like a young Vladimir Putin) and 2 for the dialogue/translation/checking.

Set in London in 1953, this Spanish comic, about the forensic scientist son of a Yugoslav emigré who's drawn into a plot against Tito, has some nice detailed artwork drawn (in pastels, it looks like) from old photographs, but the words leave something to be desired, and appear never to have been checked by a UK editor. (Although admittedly that wouldn't have done anything about an opening image which signalled loud and clear that it wasn't created by someone who knew England well: a ranting street madman, neatly attired in suit, bowler, moustache, trenchcoat and umbrella... fervently brandishing a crucifix. As if Mr. Banks from Mary Poppins had had gone RC and had a funny turn.) Not only is it translated into American rather than British English; there are numerous spelling mistakes, especially of proper names; there is cringeworthy exposition as characters have conversations explaining the background to political events they are obviously both familiar with already, sometimes using perspectives which became prevalent during the 1990s; simple continuity errors such as initially referring to King Peter II of Yugoslavia - even accompanied by a picture - as King Paul II; no-one realised that the name Ralph Ellison for a white English MI5 boss might jar... and I could add more.

On the plus side, it's quite an unusual story - Yugoslavs in Britain at this time is something one barely hears about; it's nice to see Euro drama for once not using former-Yugoslav male characters just as meathead thugs-for-hire (a trope I've seen a few times in TV and films, especially earlier in the current decade); I enjoyed looking up some of the references and learning a little more about bits of history of which my knowledge is fairly rudimentary; and it's cool that the haughty, charismatic MI6 Balkans specialist, Vanessa Rowe, is slightly reminiscent of Rebecca West, and therefore isn't only an identikit femme fatale.

This is a comic book, so it has more chances to earn stars; the text here is supplemented with a range of illustrations and details to lift the story beyond where the words alone would take it.
That isn't to say that the story is not gripping and interesting in itself. It is just a little dry at first, based as it is, on the aftermath of World War II and the duplicity of the powers that led to Tito becoming the communist leader of Yugoslavia. This isn't common history and a number of facts and the complicated divisions of that 'united' states needed to be explained as they appear fundamental to the narrative. At times you feel the writer is speaking with the hindsight of Tito's death, when the Balkans decended into nationalist genocide and ethnic cleansing.
But this is 1953, and the story is of a young chemist who appears to be out to kill the Yugoslav leader. Tito has been invited by the government to London, and on those very streets our protagonist, Alexander is carrying a bomb, as he evades a secruity cordon due to the fog in order to to reach the Thame, where Tito's yacht will dock.
We are then taken back in time to understand how Alex got to this point. The story then is one of self discovery for the him. He learns unknown details from the life of his Mother following her 'accidental' death. He meets a trained assassain who warns him off and is picked up by the secret service.
I love the sense of time and place. I found the story tense and compelling as the background details are revealed and brought into focus. Like Alex at the time you wonder if he ever knew his Mother or if the facts as they become known, will make him think differently towards his homeland and the current political situation. Equally it is difficult to know who he can trust when within MI5 & MI6 there were communist moles working for the Soviets. I liked the gentle aside to these double agents and spies. The U.K. had switched sides as the peace unfolded after the war, but why was Churchill such best pals with Tito at all.

The writers are knowledgable of the politics of the period and historical context and thus brings some clarity to a difficult subject. They are aware that the reader may be on a steep learning curve to grasp matters to understand and even allow a character to deliver a telling line about how we can rarely interpret history correctly.
The opening scenes, set amid the capital's smog that blurs familiar landmarks and allows friend and foe to go unrecognised on their way is a metaphor of the complexity of this story.
Whose side is anyone on?
Who are the good guys?
Is Alex caught up in his Mother's struggle or open to be compelled to act on his own volition?

The many layers makes for an interesting read and then like some old black and white movie, the story fades and you are left dangling. Cliff-hanger was coined for plots left unresolved until the next episode and on the strength of this first volume who isn't going to want to read on.................

A cool graphic novel with a historical bend to it. Crime, war, and spies make this a graphic novel to remember.

The main protagonist, former Belgrade native, thirty something, Alexander Ostojic was well-drawn. The comic strip artwork was well done and kept steady pace with a storyline; it provided an added feature to the readership and effortlessly guided me through the pages, make that pictures. The narrative carried me through a tense, uncertain situation to where there were no clear-cut answers, the proverbial rock and a hard place. Just ever so slightly, my stomach tightened.

Alex was a chemist in the forensic laboratory of Scotland Yard during the ensuing years of World War II, 1953 to be precise. A cat and mouse game was being secretly played out by forces unknown to him. Before long, he would soon find out.

His mother had been struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver in the busy streets of London. It was no accident; she had been assassinated. A carefully scripted web of intrigue began to spread far and wide, well beyond what Alex was capable of grasping.

Unknowingly, he was being pulled to a dark world, yet, he wasn't sure about who the good guys or the bad guys were. That was unnerving. Who could he trust? He might just find out, that is, if he survives to see the next day.

I send my thanks to NetGalley and Europe Comics for this digital edition in exchange for an unbiased review.

Yack yack yack yack yack. A murder mystery feel is soon dropped for just talk about Yugoslav politics and little else. Inherently ignorable.