I had never heard this story and always love a historical book filled with questions and intrigue. The illustrations are fantastic – the reader can feel just how cold that mountain is, as the images emanate temperatures from the pages.

Nine experienced mountaineers take off to cross Dyatlov Pass on February 1, 1959. They don't make it, and there are questions as to what happened as each body is discovered.

The graphic novel format works well for the story. The dossier at the end adds great context but doesn’t answer everything. Was there a cover-up by the government? Was a diary found? What about all the photos taken? Thank you #NetGalley for the ARC!

This is a real and interesting mystery from fairly recent history. Done through graphic novel form, this book examines the mystery where a group of college students disappeared and were later found dead under mysterious circumstances.
I was kind of hoping for an idea that would resolve the mystery, but there is no new information and nobody really knows what happened, even after the investigation. There is a theory at the end but I didn't really buy it.
The lack of color in the pictures did an amazing job making me feel like I was in this cold area trying to work out the mystery.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this

First I must saw I love the art style of this graphic novel. The colour choices and the linework work really well together.

As for the plot, the events of Feb 1959 will probably always remain a true mystery. But there are some stories are better left without answers.

The Dyatlov Pass Mystery explores two sides to the story, the mountain hike, and the investigation a few weeks later. The Narrative often flips between the “past” and the “present” and keeps the readers interest.

I personally felt more drawn to the characters of the “past” because they feel a little more fleshed out than the main investigator in the “present”, but both perspectives are equally enjoyable. I read it in one sitting and I was interested to see the plot unfold. I would recommend this graphic novel if you enjoy short stories and winter trek tales. With a little bit of mystery sprinkled on top.

Actually fun and educational graphic novel. Very fun to learn about this event in a comic form. Easy to follow.

I've been fascinated by the Dyatlov Pass incident for quite some time. On February 1st or 2nd, 1959, a group of nine experienced hikers died under uncertain and ultimately unexplained circumstances. There isn't one definite explanation, and theories about the incident vary widely. I've seen theories that consider yetis, aliens, an avalanche, military tests, and more. The Dyatlov Pass Mystery by Cédric Mayen and Jandro González analyzes what we know about the hikers, theorizes about their final days, and beautifully depicts their story in a graphic novel format.

In the early days of my blog, I reviewed Dead Mountain, a non-fiction book by Donnie Eichar that analyzes what happened on the mountain that day. That book is excellent, but The Dyatlov Pass Mystery graphic novel distinguishes itself, in my opinion. This graphic novel looks not only at the hikers but also at the investigator and the USSR politics that hindered the investigation. Reading about the politics of the USSR and how it may have lengthened the amount of time this case has gone unsolved added a whole new level to this story. Many of the hikers also had thoughts about the USSR, and it was interesting to read how these interactions may have played out.

While we may not know exactly what happened on the mountain, reading and visualizing what might have happened and how the investigation played out is a great experience. This is a wonderful book for those interested in the Dyatlov Pass incident or the unexplained. Though there is no single conclusion offered, the author ends the book with interviews with various scientific experts that offer multiple possible conclusions.

I enjoyed a lot about the art in this graphic novel. I liked that the two timelines had different color schemes that differentiated them. The female characters were beautifully drawn and were distinct from one another. However, several of the male hikers looked very similar and were difficult to distinguish in the hiking timeline. This didn't hinder my reading experience much, but it was still noticeable.

This is an excellent graphic novel and it looks at the hikers as real people. I love that it analyzes this incident with humanity and doesn't look at the situation through a monstrous lens. While three years ago I might have wanted a salacious tale, I appreciated this graphic novel for the care it took.

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars.

My full review will be posted on Back Shelf Books at the following link (also posted below) on December 27, 2023:
https://backshelfbooks.com/2023/12/27/graphic-novel-review-the-dyatlov-pass-mystery-by-cedric-mayen-and-jandro-gonzalez/

When nine hikers go missing on the slopes of Dyatlov Pass in 1959, a prosecutor working for the Soviet Union must attempt to uncover the truth, though his job is only made more difficult by the strange circumstances and the caginess of the government.

The Dyatlov Pass mystery is a case I've heard of before. Even decades later, there's no consensus on what caused the hikers to flee their tents into the snow, where they all eventually froze to death. There's plenty of strange features to it, including unusual injuries and apparent radiation burns on some of the hikers' faces. Matters were not helped by a limited investigation by the USSR government.

This is a short graphic novel, translated from French by James Hogan, which tells the story through two storylines. One follows the hikers, trying to reconstruct the last few days of their lives through the evidence of people they encountered and their logbooks, while the other follows prosecutor Lev as he tries to uncover the truth of what happened to them. The author does a good job of creating sympathy for the lost hikers quickly, centering the around the tragedy of their lost lives, as well emphasizing Lev's frustration when he's repeatedly stonewalled in his investigation.

I also liked the short section at the end of the book that goes more into the history of the case and several proposed solutions from recent times. However, while I did enjoy the art style, it did make me confuse characters on occasion, especially the hikers who were bundled up in coats and hats and therefore difficult to differentiate. I also wished the investigative storyline was a little longer, delving more into the possibilities that Lev is considering and why - ideas are mentioned but not gone into due to the brevity of the book.

This was an interesting graphic novel. I was not expecting to enjoy the format or content as much as I did. The Dyatlov Pass Mystery was interesting to read and kept my attention. The book was a quick read. The only thing I struggled with was the past and present of the book, as I had a hard time figuring out what happened with the story in the beginning.

This ARC was provided to me by NetGalley. Thank you.

Serviceable explanation, but it doesn't do anything to elevate the tale. If you are already familiar with the event, you won't learn anything, and if you aren't you may wish for more information. This mystery deserves a Rick Geary approach, and this isn't it.

I didn't love this comic, but I didn't hate it either! I was not the biggest fan of the art style, it felt a little lackluster to me. I also felt that the story itself was very slow, but I AM happy that the story did not take a turn towards sci-fi or monster horror because I feel like those type of takes on the Dyatlov mystery feel very disrespectful towards the victims.

I first learned about The Dyatlov Pass from watching Expedition Unknown a few years ago. It was a very interesting mystery at the time, but has since grown massively in popularity. It's very interesting to see this graphic novel coming out, and how it breaks down the different theories through the thought process of an investigator. Clever. The story switches from the perspective of the hikers to the investigators. It was a good dynamic that kept the scenes flowing.

I also appreciated the artwork included here, as some of the scenes seem to be comic versions of the photos taken from the cameras of the hikers! I thought that was a nice touch.

*** Thank you to NetGalley and Europe Comics for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Dyatlov Pass mystery is one that has fascinated me since I first read about it in 2016. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that the story has been turned into a graphic novel, or that it's been translated into English—I was fully prepared to struggle through the French if need be, and the state of my French is *dire*, so it's a delight that this is available in English.

The basic gist is this: in January of 1959, ten hikers set out into the remote wilderness of Russia for a multi-day hike. They were experienced trekkers, and this hike would qualify them for the highest ranking of hiker, so to speak. One had to turn back early due to chronic pain—and he would be the only survivor.

When searchers eventually located the bodies, strewn in and near the woods close to their tent, it was clear enough *how* the hikers had died: some from hypothermia, some from catastrophic injuries. What was less clear was *why* they had died. Why did they erect their tent on an open slope instead of in the protection of the trees—and what had compelled these experienced, competent hikers to leave the tent in the middle of the night in a perilously cold winter night?

In "The Dyatlov Pass Mystery", Mayen and Jandro set out to tell a fictionalized version of the story. There are two time lines at play—one, the time line of Ivanov, the prosecutor tasked with finding out what happened (and where the last of the bodies were); two, the hikers themselves as they set out on their ill-fated expedition. The case is well documented, as (among other things) the hikers kept detailed diaries and took photographs, although not all of the material has been made public (because USSR). Theories also run the gamut from the prosaic to the, well, *highly* unrealistic, and here it's up to Ivanov to decide how much credence to give to some of the more outlandish theories. Did someone find them out in the wilderness and attack them? Did they think an avalanche was coming? Had the men fought over the two women in the group? Or was it some sort of missile—or aliens?

This is a fictionalized version of the story, a sequence of events that *could have* happened based on the information at hand (and with a fair amount of elaboration, especially when it comes to dialogue and backstories) but not claiming to have all the answers. The art is strong—not my favorite style, but gets the job done and then some—and was the deciding factor in this being a four-star rather than a three-star read for me. Sometimes I think the story plays up the Drama in unnecessary ways, but it's pretty restrained, all things considered.

Where most of my questions came were at the end. I won't get into how Mayen and Jandro end the final section from the perspective of the hikers except to say that I don't think the last panels represent the most realistic portrayal. But...there's also a "dossier" at the end that goes into more of the research that has been done into the case, including interviews with some of the people who have investigated it in more recent years. What's so odd to me is that when Mayen interviews Johan Gaume, who did some mathematical modeling about the case that made big news a couple of years ago, he says to Gaume that "you uncovered what drove the mountaineers to flee their tent" (p. ~106*). Why they left the tent has always been the biggest question (other things, like "what happened to so-and-so's tongue", are very easily explained by things like months of decomposition and animal activity before all the bodies were found), and I fully agree that Gaume's findings have led to the most logical conclusions to date. But...they're not the conclusions that Mayen and Jandro focus on, or really portray, in the book. Rather, he plays up the possibility of something unlikely in the story itself—and in the dossier he gives a lot of credence to the people who run dyatlovpass dot com, which is a mine of information but very chaotic, and who wrote a nearly incoherent book on the subject. It leaves me wondering why the story doesn't lean in more to Gaume's research, and why the list of sources includes (among other media) only two books.

All that said: while I don't recommend this as one's sole source of information about the Dyatlov Pass incident—it's fiction, after all, and besides which quite literally every book, fiction and nonfiction, that I have read on the subject draws a different conclusion about what happened—it makes for an excellent story. I will be hanging on to this to reread.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*I read an ARC, and quotes may not be final.

This graphic novel is an illustrated look into the well known mystery of the Dyatlov Pass. We take a peek into the mind of the detective who is tasked with a case that remains unsolved to this day.

A short and sweet comic, the dialogue is easy to read and well paced. All illustrations are very well done. My only qualm is with the character designs looking a bit too similar to one another, making it hard to discern between the characters. You can see this especially when flipping between the past and the present. I do think, however, it was a good choice to separate the past with a monochrome colours and keep the present with full colours for clarity.

I have spent many hours looking into this mystery in the past and it was very nice to get to see the case from the perspective of a detective. This graphic novel is a great read and it was great to see the humanization of the victims involved. I am definitely left wondering what truly transpired at the Dyatlov Pass.

Thank you NetGalley and Europe Comics for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to the author, Netgalley, and Europe Comics for this ARC.

I found the beginning a little difficult to get into, as I was expecting a little more focus on the campers and the events themselves rather than the investigator and the KGB. I also found the art style a little hard to focus on at times, with some difficulty reading the small text or identifying the characters, but overall I thought this was a good story about the incident.

I think this might be a better comic for someone a little more experienced in what exactly the Dyatlov Pass incident was, as I found the beginning a bit confusing as no one was properly introduced and it was a bit difficult to identify what was in the past and what was the investigation.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Europe Comics for an advanced copy of this graphic novel that looks at the mysterious death of a group of young mountain climbers at the peak of the Cold War in Russia, and many questions, conspiracies and theories of how they met their fate.

A conspiracy is probably one of the easiest things to give birth to in all of the world. For all our science, for all our faith, humans tend to believe the oddest things. Humans want answers to everything, even to questions we can't come up with. Things have to have a reason, a meaning. A mystery is almost an insult, something tossed back at us from those things we think exist in the dark just out of RING camera's range. Some things will always remain unknown. Why did nine people die, experienced outdoors people, die, there tent ripped open, in different areas, with little in the way of gear, boots, or clothing. Some showing signs of trauma. Some with high doses of radiation. One can see where there would be a lot of questions. Questions a totalitarian government would not want to be bothered with, nor be embarrassed by. And police by their nature like simple crimes, with simple answers, only in fiction do police detectives investigate deeply. Especially again with a government that does not want answers. So aliens, Americans, indigenous people, the wind, the weather, Yeti, atomic testing, all can be blamed. And a conspiracy will arise. The Dyatlov Pass Mystery is a graphic novel that tells of this real event written by Cédric Mayen, illustrated by Jandro González, and translated from French by James Hogan.

The book begins in 1959 after a group of college hikers have disappeared in Russia, with as many stories set in the Soviet Union begin, with the KGB pulling up to an apartment building. A investigator, known for his tenacity and investigative zeal is given the task of finding this missing hikers. Pressure is coming down to find the hikers, and keep this story out of the press, as it could be an embarrassment to the current premier. Readers go back a few weeks to meet these hikers ten in all, eight students, and two experienced outdoorsmen as they travel through parts of Russia that are stuck in time. One of the students is left behind with back problems, and it is he that is left to tell the tale, or take the blame. The story flows back and forth from the points of view of the hikers and the investigator, whose case takes a nasty turn when bodies begin to finally be found. Something happened, something that drove them out of their tent, shoeless and gearless, with wounds on some of them, and into the frozen waste to die. As rumors grow, the pressure to end the investigation begins to grow, as State secrets must be kept, even at the cost of the dead.

A good overview of the Dyatlov Pass story, one that I have read a few books on and listened to a few podcasts about. There is a lot of mystery and confusion, not helped by the loss of information, the fact the government just wanted it to go away, and the stories that began to grow. Aliens. They were near a Soviet missile test site, even meteors. The writing is good, my only problem is that one doesn't get a good feeling for the hikers, why they were out, their training and why people in Russia cared so much. However again it is more an overview, and does a good job of explaining things. The appendix has two possible theories that are probably the closest one will come to an answer, and that is detailed well. I liked the art quite a bit, especially the use of color tint to separate the two different time periods in the story. The artist did a very good job of showing the environment, the dangers, and how sometimes nature is beautiful, but it can be a lonely place to die.

Recommended for European comic fans who will probably be familiar with the story, conspiracy fans and for people who like their graphic novels with a more realistic theme than just superheroes. For people who might have caught mention of this on a podcast, like Last Podcast on the Left, this would be a good introduction. An interesting read.

It's been a while since I last read a comic and when I came across this one on Netgalley I just thought, why not. It'll be out on the 27th of December.

This is the story of the Dyatlov Pass mystery in comic book form. It tells the story of this mystery, with some interpretation of course, of the events leading up to the horrible fate the explorers met.

It was quite interesting to read/see about this story as I've never heard of it before. The story is beautifully drawn and told as you can actually learn from it. The faces of the characters were a bit alike which made it a bit difficult to distinguish between them. Halfway through it became a bit more clear.

An interesting story depicted in a great way albeit a but confusing at the start.

4/5 ⭐

This comic explores the events and theories surrounding the Dyatlov Pass Mystery in which nine mountaineers died in unexplainable ways in 1959. This book also contains interviews at the end with experts on this mystery which further explore the conspiracy theories surrounding this case.

As someone who is fascinated by this case, I found this comic very interesting. I loved the art work and thought it was very clever using different colour schemes for the past and present timelines. This was translated into English from French however the translation felt very natural so it wasn't obvious that it was translated. I thought the inclusion of imagined events from the past timeline was really interesting and bought the mountaineers to life as people rather than just victims which is so often the case for this particular mystery.

However I do wish that all the characters had been introduced at the start as I found myself getting confused as to who was who and the relationships between different characters. I found the interviews at the end quite repetitive and nothing really ground breaking or new was discussed.

Overall this was a great summary of all the facts of this mystery and the illustrations are absolutely incredible!

The overall, I though this was very well done. I am interested in Dyatlov Pass, the mystery that surrounded it, and conclusions drawn.

The art work was stunning. I liked the way they used color to differentiate between the past vents and current investigation. It was very detailed and held my attention. The visual story telling was excellent and flowed well. I understood what was happening even on panels with no words.

This is a translated graphic novel from French to English. Sometimes translations I've read has been confusing/some information is lost but I found this one very clear and easy to understand.

I will purchase this once it is released.

Good take on the story of the Dyatlov Pass incident, but I just wasn't a big fan of the art style. The story was told very well and in an interesting way but every once in a while I would fall out of it due to how much the art was bothering my eyes.