Evil Eyes Sea by Ozge Samanci

What a terrific murder mystery graphic novel! I read a lot of both, and know how difficult it can be to perfectly encapsulate a crime novel — and one that involves not only a murder but political intrigue, as well — into graphic format. Ozge Samanci has managed that in this compelling tale, that’s rightfully been sweeping up awards.

Set in 1990s Turkey, Ece and Meltem are mechanical engineering students at Bosphorus University. Meltem is smart and beautiful, and has the men flocking to her. Ece is shorter and bolder, and often runs interference for the more reticent Meltem. The two women are best friends and scuba diving enthusiasts, aided by Meltem’s boyfriend Omer, who supplies both gear and a psychological shield against a chauvinistic society that questions the presence of women in certain public spaces.

It’s while on a dive in the Bosphorus that the unimaginable happens. Ece and Meltem are enjoying the underwater experience when what feels like a meteor crashes into the water beside them. The meteor is actually a fancy car, which has plunged in with lights ablaze. As it sinks further into the deep, the women see that there’s someone trapped inside the vehicle. Worse, it’s someone they know. Ece and Meltem do everything they can to rescue Selen, another woman who goes to school with them, but they’re too late. By the time they bring her to the surface, she’s already dead.

Unable to shake the memory of what happened, Ece wants to investigate. Meltem has no interest in digging deeper into Selen’s death but circumstances prevail, pulling them into an orbit of lies and corruption that could very well have deadly consequences for them both.

The greatest accomplishment of this graphic novel is the way it not only packs a satisfying tale of friendship and crime into under 300 deftly illustrated pages, but also how it paints an entire portrait of what it feels like to be a young woman struggling to exist in a society that is, if not quite repressive, certainly stifling. Ms Samanci’s experiences echo so many of my own from going to college in Malaysia. While my own roommate situations were never so crowded or drought-struck — tho Westerners will likely clutch their pearls even at the fact that we were six to a two-bedroom apartment — I certainly sympathized with how Ece is desperate for work and how much she hates studying something “practical”. I also felt a weird nostalgia for how she and her friends partied on a budget, even as they ignored the strictures coming down on them from all sides as to how they “should” behave.

Parallel experiences aside, I was totally immersed not only in the underwater scenes but also in the depictions of national politics. I have read enough Turkish prose to be mostly confused about their history: Evil Eyes Sea, on the other hand, makes the circumstances much clearer, even as it uses fiction to disguise actual events and personages. The amount of off-the-cuff detail in this book made it feel intensely autobiographical. Even tho you know it’s fiction, it reads so persuasively that you can’t help but feel that all of it must be true, not just the parts inspired by the author’s own life.

That’s a remarkable achievement for any book, but especially for a graphic novel. Anything less than photorealism naturally places a barrier between the reader and author, yet Ms Samanci transcends that division with ease. Little wonder that this entertaining and astute volume has won so many well-deserved awards.

Evil Eyes Sea by Ozge Samanci was published June 18 2024 by Uncivilized Press and is available from all good booksellers, including