Woodbrook is your typical village populated by anthropomorphic animals, friendly and familiar faces, houses with big yards, and a main street lined with plenty of shops. The local hardware store belongs to Sam Strong, a brown bear. Sam is well loved by the townsfolk and is always available to help with advice on home improvement projects and a smile, but she has a secret.

Sam is a serial killer, but she’s meticulous and there are rules to her ways. Her two main rules are keep it random and don’t murder the locals. Sam keeps all the activity in the big city, where people go missing all the time. There are no flaws in the system until a mishap during the town’s bicentennial parade reveals someone has murdered a local old goat named Martin. Sam must find the small-town murderer before their crimes expose her.

A cross between the Busy World of Richard Scary and Dexter, Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees is a great small-town detective story with one of the grayest protagonists you’ll ever meet. It plays like a cozy mystery with a detective whose motives aren’t justice, while making sure her secret stays exactly that. There hasn’t been a murder in Woodbrook in forty years, and this violent act crowbars the familiarity the residents all had with one another.

Patrick Horvath writes and illustrates a mystery that feels more and more uncomfortable through its twists and turns. Any wrong turn can be fatal to Sam, and the terms predator and prey are interchangeable. Horvath contrasts this perfectly with locked doors and looks behind their own shoulder. Even Sam – who plays most of this ordeal as cool as a cucumber – has a few breaking points.

Hassan Otamane-Elhaou’s letters give us a feel that we are reading from someone’s secret journal with caption boxes that look like torn pages. The subtlety of the letters is what grounds this story. While there are moments of loudness in this story, this is a quiet tale about a small town and the secrets they want to keep hidden.

Creative Team: Patrick Horvath (writer/artist), Hassan Otamane-Elhaou (letterer)
Publisher: IDW Publishing
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