Lover's Lane: The Hall-Mills Mystery

The black-and-white linear artwork of cartoonist and illustrator Geary could not be more effective in evoking a sense of time and place as in this true crime story set in 1922 New Jersey. As part of the "Treasury of XXth-Century Murder" graphic novel series from NBM Publishing (Geary has authored all of them), this volume employs procedural narrative to explore the murder mystery of Reverend Hall and his paramour, Mrs. Eleanor Mills. Both were thought by many in his congregation to be cheating on their spouses with each other, and in this reserved Victorian climate, it was shocking. Even after their bullet-ridden bodies were discovered together with love letters strewn about, Mrs. Hall denied the affair. Many suspects were brought in, Mrs. Hall among them, but no definitive evidence linked anyone to the crime.