Who Killed Nessie? by Paul Cornell & Rachael Smith

Lyndsay Grockle works at a small boutique hotel, the Lakeside, in northern Wisconsin [1]. She's the newest member of staff, described as an intern - I don't think hotels usually work like that, but OK. There's an odd convention that shows up every year, and, this time, she's going to run the whole hotel solo for the weekend while that happens. (Again: even a five-room B&B will have three or four people working over a weekend, and this hotel seems to be big enough to hold about a hundred guests. But that's the story, and it's set up immediately: in fiction, you take the premise as given, though it may sometimes be a lot to swallow.)

As Lyndsay quickly learns when the guests start to check in on Friday, this is the annual convention of the mysterious creatures of the world: mythologicals, cryptids, lake monsters, and so on. Mummies, selkies, fairies, bigfeet, stink apes, Jersey devils, firebirds, Baba Yaga - only one of each (except the fairies, who are more-or-less the hosts and may have an extensive larger society we don't see), because each of them is a singular thing. Notably missing is the Hodag, who probably could have walked to the event, but it doesn't seem like this is supposed to be everyone: just the ones who are more clubby and decided to come this year.

OK, so that's weird. And they seem to just want her to be quiet and stay away from their function spaces: they don't need food from the hotel, or anything else. (No one preps these rooms for the panels? Or cleans up afterwards? The hotel staff doesn't turn on lights and check the grounds and all of those other things? I suppose I'm still having trouble buying the "only one person" part of the premise.)

So Lyndsay is a little grumpy and out-of-sorts, particularly since this makes her remember her ex-boyfriend, a  massive conspiracy theorist who does not come across well in a few flashback pages, and wonder if he was right. (I don't think so: he's a flat-earther, among other stupid ideas. He could have been more nuanced, but that's not the way he's presented.) But then one of the attendees wakes her up in the middle of the night with the news that the title has already spoiled: the Loch Ness Monster is dead.

Murdered.

And only Lyndsay, the outsider, can investigate and find out Who Killed Nessie?

She's pulled into this investigation by the Beast of Bodmin Moor - Bob for short - who woke her up, gave her the scoop, explained how this group works, and started introducing her to the rest. Bob - like many of these creatures, Bob's appearance is variable, partially because of personal choice and partially because of human expectations, which means Bob uses pronouns at what seems to be random whim - also speaks in a somewhat old-fashioned Cornish dialect that comes across to Lyndsay (and the reader) as if he's trying to talk like a pirate.

Lyndsay talks to a whole lot of the attendees, learning about their disputes and personal clashes and polymorphous perversity: they're all shape-changers, and see above about variable appearance and pronouns. She gets a few solid suspects, travels to the underworld with the aid of a very puppyish Cerberus, and, eventually, declares that she knows who the killer is and will reveal that in the traditional "I suppose you're wondering why I called you all here" speech.

I'm not quite sure if Nessie is meant for young readers or not - some aspects seem to aim that way, but the whole polymorphous perversity thing - even if it's kept vague and off-page, creators Paul Cornell and Rachael Smith make it very clear one major reason for this convention is for various creatures to get freaky with each other in ways a lot of school systems and library boards would be deeply uncomfortable with if they learned about it.

Well, that's for librarians and teachers to worry about. For the rest of us readers, it's an amusing story with a lot of colorful, quirky characters, and only a few hiccups in the worldbuilding (that I've already wasted enough time on). Cornell has written a lot of comics and TV; he shows an ease at maneuvering what could have been a large, unwieldy cast so that it's clearly a big group but the narrative focuses on just a few important people. And Smith's line is light and flowing, with a lot of energy and life to it. keeping the whole story towards the cozy side of murder.

Who Killed Nessie? is a solid play-fair fantasy mystery in comics form: it aims to do several complicated things simultaneously and does them all pretty well.

[1] The first page says the Lakeside is fifty miles north of Turoga, which doesn't seem to exist. That hotel also seems to be on Lake Champlain, which is not particularly close to Wisconsin. I suspect this book's British creators have as detailed a knowledge of American geography as I do of that of the Midlands.