'Mind the Gap' a fine mystery story with multiple layers

They say that death is the greatest mystery of all, but I think there might be one thing just a little more unknowable. It happens when someone steps just over the border of life and death and is trapped in between, in that space where science tells us they are not dead despite the fact that they are certainly not alive and well. What we call being comatose or in a “persistent vegetative state” is to me far more mysterious than the finality of death, and in Jim McCann’s newest series “Mind the Gap,” a not quite murder mystery starts off with Ellis caught in this most unfathomable physical and mental state.

Taking his cue from a master of mystery novels, Agatha Christie, McCann has not only provided clues that we the reader can use to solve the mystery but already introduced us to the killer. Without giving away too much, “Mind the Gap” begins with a mysterious phone call to a young woman named Jo, Ellis’s best friend, and follows a trail of calls all the way to the hospital.

At this point we meet all the players but two, and as Ellis lays in bed, her family and friends snipe and bait each other in their distress and in some cases their callous disregard. What they don’t know is that Ellis can hear them all as she has slipped into a strange in between place where others like her reside. It takes her a little while to find her voice in the shadow world, but before long she has done so and proceeds to ask questions about just one of the mysteries populating this book.

At first “Mind the Gap” seems about as difficult to solve as the whodunit in an episode of “Psych” with a famous guest star, but the fact is that upon further reading it is clear just how murky a world we have entered. As we are introduced to the players, there are only two which can be innocent of the assault on Ellis, based on the timeline meticulously and proudly outlined by McCann and artist Rodin Esquejo throughout the panels of the story. Beyond the mystery of the assault, which is more than a random act of violence, there is also the mystery of Ellis’s place in the world now that she has stepped just over the border of life and death.

Given that many mystery stories today are written so as to make it impossible for the reader to ever determine who is the villain, it would not be surprising if readers made no attempt to do so. McCann makes it gleefully clear in his epilogue that this isn’t the case though, and clues have been laid throughout the story to help readers unravel the tale as the series progresses. With the art of Esquejo bringing to life each of these characters it is impossible to resist the urge to peer closely into the faces of each man and woman involved and attempt to discern their true feelings.

A work beautiful in its complexity, both in its layered mystery plots and the nuanced art of Esquejo, “Mind the Gap” will pull you in and have you taking apart panels like a forensic team looking to solve the mysteries bound within them.

WILLIAM KULESA can be reached at