Reviews with content warning for Murder - Lost Lad London, Vol. 1

Al Adley is a normal uni student just trying to get through school. He lives with a flatmate, Callum, who he helps out with essays, for a small price. We start at winter break. Callum is going home to visit his family, but Al is just staying in the city to keep working through the holiday. It’s a pretty normal time of the year. Well, save for the fact that the mayor of London was just killed on the tube. And the fact that Al was on the tube at the same time… Detective Lenny Ellis is working the case, as is nearly every detective and cop in town, but Ellis isn’t like all the others working the case. No, there’s another case hanging over his head. One that he couldn’t solve before. One that continues to hang over his head. Can he find the answers to this case in time?

If I remember correctly, I picked up this volume because I liked the art style. There’s also not a lot of manga that takes place in the UK, so I was interested in that. There’s also the fact that it’s a real murder mystery, again not something you see tons of in manga. I picked it up, bought it, and took it home to sit on my bookshelf for a few months. The second volume came out, and I decided I needed to read volume 1 to decide if I wanted to go on to 2. So in I dove!

The art is one of the strongest positives I have for this manga. I love the character design for Al and Ellis. The slightly stylized, but not really look is great. As for the plot and mystery, I have two theories. If the first one is right, it’s a little boring. If my second theory is right, I would love this series forever. There are spoilers, however, so I’m going to get to those in just a minute.

Before that, I just want to say, I think the biggest fault of Lost Lad London 1 is the pacing. I know we’re doing a police mystery detective thing, but everything's happening so fast. Not to mention, all of their theories seem to be paying off. They have yet to run into any dead ends, which is great for keeping the reader engaged, I guess, but feels a bit unrealistic. I think that this pacing issue can be solved if my second theory is right. So, I’ll just get to those.

First theory:

So this is true for both of my theories, the murderer is clearly Al’s younger half-brother. Plotwise, it makes sense. Also, I noticed that there was only one character you could see pretty well at the start of the volume when Al is on the tube. I went back once we had Royce introduced. It’s clearly Royce. Like hands down clearly Royce. We still don’t know why Royce is targeting Al now. It’s not like Al was trying to shove his way into the family or extorting it. So, there’s at least that mystery still, but I’m going to continue the series as though there is no question as to who done it. My first theory is just that. Royce did it. He’s attempting to push blame onto his older half-brother. Maybe he’s jealous or something? Maybe he overheard his father say he’s never loved anyone more than Avani? I guess this isn’t exactly a theory the way I write about it. It’s just the truth for me, until I’m told different.

Theory Two / adding on:

The second part of the theory is that this isn’t the second time Ellis is dealing with a possible false suspect. This is the first case. We are going through the first case. I’m thinking maybe Ellis is in a coma? He seems to get around just fine despite all of his injury. We don’t even know how he was injured. It could have been an attempted suicide out of guilt, and now we’re in his head as he goes through all of the past over again with a fine tooth comb in hopes of figuring out where he went wrong. I think this at least helps with the pacing problem. We’re jumping forward and getting answers because he doesn’t need to stop and fail a lot since he already has previously when he was actually investigating the case. It would be a reason why it doesn’t matter that the mangaka has given us the real killer basically on a platter. The murder is the red herring. The real mystery is that the case is just THE case. We do still get to have the questions as to why Royce framed his brother, but that doesn’t have to be the only mystery remaining now. Then again, I guessed this in the first like 20 pages, so maybe it’s not as shocking as I want it to be. I still think it would be chilling when it’s revealed. Anyways, my main reason for believing this, other than the pacing is that Ellis jumped on believing Al was innocent and asked for his help real fast. I get he was feeling guilty, but even for that it feels too much. But using Al to go through everything in his head and having talks about why and what he missed are important and I think pretty good for a murder mystery like this. I’m pretty sure I’m right on this, but I’ll just have to see. I don’t think it’s the most uncommon trope to use, but I like Al and Ellis so I think it’d be fine and fun to read still.

I’m absolutely buying the next book tomorrow at work!

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