Cahiers Madeleine #5

The fifth volume of this Aire Libre series from Bertail, Morvan, and Riffaud arrives with a cover that says everything without showing a face: two silhouetted figures — a woman with curly hair and a man in a wide-brimmed hat — share an intimate moment while armed German soldiers in steel helmets close in around them through a snow-flecked, blue-washed night. The tension between tenderness and danger is perfectly distilled in Bertail's stark, moody palette of midnight blues and shadow. If this series has been on your radar, volume five looks like exactly the right moment to catch up.