The One Hand and The Six Fingers series are creating a new model of mysteries. Two series that cross over, with one focused on the killer and the other on the Detective, have equaled an intriguing symbiotic relationship for each book and the reader. The One Hand #4 picks up where The Six Fingers #3 left off, and Detective Ari Nasser is coming to grips with the fact that the killer is impossibly inside a wall. Something that should be impossible, but a few things have already proven impossible yet exist in this series.
The One Hand #4 opens with Ari Nasser communicating with the killer at a crime scene in a hospital. A body has been dismembered and piled up on a hospital bed. The victim was the killer Ari assumed did the murders that have popped back up, but it’s not as simple as that. This issue dives into ancient history and philosophy in a few different ways, expanding the reader’s mind and offering a larger-than-life possibility of how a killer could hop between people.
This issue has thought-provoking elements. Through key conversations, Ari gathers ideas that go back to the ancient Greeks. The concept of memory and how our minds may transport ideas from the past add new layers to what could happen to the killer. The concepts are a bit out there, and while Ari doesn’t seem to hold much importance to them, the reader certainly gets a heavy dose of clues to start to piece together what it all could mean.
The opening page…
Credit: Image
This issue establishes that Ari is in a far more dangerous spot and going it fully alone in his quest for answers. That helps signal we’re closing in on an ending since he can’t go on like this for much longer. The stakes are raised as well because the next victim may be someone Ari holds dear.
Art by Lawrence Campbell takes on darker tones in this issue with fewer flourishes of colorful light. It’s almost like the walls are closing in on Ari, while at the same time, they’re closing in on the killer due to his new ability. One scene is bathed in light, yet it still uses shadow around Ari’s face as if he is entering a darker place. There’s some interesting visual work integrating the strange symbols the killer draws on walls. In the outdoor scene, we see the tables at which people sit, making up the symbols to convey this secret language all around us.
While the sci-fi elements are a bit more limited in this issue, there is an interesting reveal regarding cameras following the killer. That’s another layer to what this force is going beyond a simple in-grown memory we’re born with. Interesting stuff.
The One Hand #4 further sends its lead character down a rabbit hole of annihilation. He’s much worse off by the end of the issue but closer to answers and finding the killer. The question is, can the killer ever be caught if it’s something beyond flesh and blood?
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