Whereas some siblings couldn’t make dinner plans to save their lives, Peter and Maria Hoey have crafted a veritable library of truly great comics works.
There’s Animal Stories, which explores our “mysterious relationship” with the world’s creatures (both big and small). There’s also In Perpetuity, which centers around a “smuggling operation between life and death.” And even a standout like The Bend of Luck, a “mind-bending tale of fortune and family” where ephemeral luck takes on an actual physical form.
Now, the siblings Hoey have teamed up with friend and writer C.P. Freund for The Shadower, which adds another multifaceted, genre-bounding work to their already impressive bibliography.
In The Shadower, we meet Nadia, a drama student in a country currently locked in a civil war of “armed men, checkpoints, and random violence.” But one day, Nadia is plucked from her work with a mission from the state: take on the identity of a local waitress ((to whom she “bears a strong resemblance”) and plant several recording devices. But what was originally intended as a one-week assignment though becomes so much more as Nadia navigates a stage show of dangerous politics and espionage that might be beyond even her sturdy theatrical skills.
Anyone who comes into The Shadower from the Hoey’s other work will instantly find the same tentpoles: a quiet, utterly disarming narrative built around highly approachable people; the slow-burn influence of the otherworldly (or simply the uncomfortable) filtering into the story; and a powerful thematic dissection (this time, it’s “identity, espionage, and betrayal”). But the book is also something of a step up for the pair, and The Shadower uses the thriller “model” to explore even bigger ideas about people, government, and the nature of our relationship with these institutions.
The Shadower is out now via Top Shelf Productions. We recently caught up with both Peter and Maria Hoey to discuss some of the book’s various ins and outs. That includes working with Freund, why Nadia works as a great lead, the story’s relevancy to right now in 2026, how being siblings influences their efforts and approaches, and how they’d each fare as spies themselves.
Courtesy of Top Shelf Productions.
AIPT: Where did the idea for a kind of literary thriller come from?
Peter Hoey: We like stories that exist within the strictures of genre fiction but then stretch those conventions with plots and characters that reveal deeper themes and motivations. I find that a very satisfying combination.
AIPT: Nadia feels so earnest and approachable as she maneuvers this bizarre, intense experience. What about her makes such a great and compelling lead?
PH: Nadia is both an innocent and a world-wise character. She has grown up navigating in a divided city that is occasionally violent. She knows the rules to that life, but then she’s thrown onto a whole new life where she has to learn a different set of rules. In that way, she is born again into a new and more dangerous world.
Maria Hoey: I think that’s what is the core in this story is that Nadia is an ordinary person, who rises to the occasion. She’s the every man, she is us — without choice or power. But, in dire times, even the most ordinary can rise to occasion. It just takes one.
Courtesy of Top Shelf Productions.
AIPT: Given the subject matter (authoritarian government, armed thugs, etc.) there’s no denying the story’s relevance to today. Is that something you leaned into, or did you perhaps hope the book might “transcend” one moment in time?
PH: Sadly, the conditions of authoritarianism seem to be with us forever.
MH: Authoritarianism is experienced across the globe. It’s all around us (although in our country right now it is stupidly self-inflicted). So it feels like a timeless story that could take place anywhere / time.
AIPT: What was it like working with C.P. Freund? What did bringing another soul do for the usual sibling dynamic of making a book?
PH: Chuck and I have worked together for many years. He has a deep understanding of writing and cinema, two things that are very important to us. Chuck and I write the stories out in prose first. It’s a good way to work out the twist and turns of plot and characters. When the prose version is done, Maria and I reconstruct the story into comic form.
Courtesy of Top Shelf Productions.
AIPT: The book’s interest in identity feels really refreshing, and not enough spy-centric tales really use the genre/trope quite so effectively. Why did the spy story feel so effective in exploring and dissecting how we view ourselves?
PH: One of the most interesting ideas of espionage is the deception practiced by the spy. Only the spy is aware of their deceit, and often they begin deceiving themselves. The boundaries between what is “real” and what is “spy craft” get blurred.
AIPT: Speaking of siblings, do you ever consider what your bond and relationship does to help or even hurt/complicate the creative process?
PH: Being siblings, we have an intuitive sense of who does what. There’s probably a little bit of telepathy in there, too.
MH: It’s a lucky and precious thing. Working together we have so many shorthands and natural flow. It all helps create the perfect atmosphere in which to make work.
Courtesy of Top Shelf Productions.
AIPT: Tonally, I think The Shadower gives as much space to spy thrillers as much as, say, film noir. Was it a fully conscious effort to have that balance, and split the difference as it were?
PH: I’ve always liked the film The Third Man. The plot moves like a spy thriller: The American naif Holly Martens (played by Joseph Cotton) goes to post-war Vienna to help his friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles). When he gets there, everyone tells him Harry is dead. The entire plot involves Martens gradually coming to understand not only is Harry still alive, but he’s an amoral killer. The lighting and camera work is very noir, but the story is a psychological uncovering of the truth that Holly was duped by his friend all along.
MH: It was a conscious choice — and reflects the idea of making this book…although the story takes place in somewhat present day, it is also timeless (and borderless). Film noir, and also the films of Cristian Mungiu, Cristi Puiu, and [Krzysztof] Kieslowski’s Dekalog were all huge influences in creating the feel of The Shadower. Also Hans Fallada’s Every Man Dies Alone was in my mind the whole time.
AIPT: I’d also read that you work on opposite coasts and pass work back-and-forth? What do you think that offers a story like The Shadower? I think you can almost feel some of that slow-burning energy and the sense of timing within the story proper.
PH: The pace and timing of the story is very important to us. Slowly ratcheting up the tension in Nadia’s life is a key element in The Shadower. Maria lives in Brooklyn and I live in northern California. The distance doesn’t mean all that much, thanks to the internet.
MH: Working on a book together, I live in that world for the year or so that we are immersed in it. Outside today in New York, there may be the parade for the Knicks, but inside for me, writing to you about The Shadower, it is the cobblestone streets of Nadia’s divided city. It is the smell of cooking in the hallways, it is the flickering bare lightbulbs, and there is that tight tension in my stomach. The fear and dread. I think to make a world in a book you have to live in it, by partitioning off part of yourself to be in there all the way. Just like Nadia did.
Courtesy of Top Shelf Productions.
AIPT: I’m curious if you had some message in creating a story where the arts are seen as being quite important enough to be “used” in statecraft and crimefighting?
PH: I think statecraft is a kind of theater, and people who excel in one can often excel in the other. Usually to the detriment of the rest of us.
MH: The arts wouldn’t be censored if they weren’t a powerful force against authoritarianism. Art will last longer and impact more than a cage match.
AIPT: I’m a big fan of some of your other work (namely The Bend of Luck). Do you have a sense of where The Shadower fits in your catalog (perhaps in terms of thematic interests, tone, sentiments, etc.)?
PH: I’m glad you like The Bend of Luck; it’s my personal favorite. I think something all our graphic novels have in common is that they play out in some of the same way films do. Maria and I grew up watching loads of movies on TV, and we’re still into cinema in a big way. I think that filmic way of storytelling has seeped into our own work.
Courtesy of Top Shelf Productions.
AIPT: Is there a standout moment in The Shadower, something that speaks to the heart of it all?
PH: I like the scene where Nadia is in Miriam’s apartment for the first time. That’s the moment when what she’s been tasked to do really sinks in.
MH: When Nadia feels the mole on her face is really there. That’s when the elevator drops.
AIPT: If you had to become a spy yourself, how might you fare and what would be your biggest strength?
PH: I would be a terrible spy. I have no ability to hide anything.
MH: If it was life or death — I could do anything. To lose yourself completely like Nadia did, you do what you have to do to survive. If the cause was greater than the self, you’d be unstoppable. And if they ended up getting you, it would still be worth it.
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