Truth in Black and Blue.

The touchy-feely vibe of BRITTEN AND BRULIGHTLY (Metropolitan/Holt, paper, $20), an elegant graphic novel by Hannah Berry, has something to do with its format -- the tall, slim, inviting layout of a picture book -- but just as much to do with the intimate, even claustrophobic, content of its narrative. Set in London during some uneasy period when it rains without end on men in double-breasted suits and women in berets, the story tracks the metaphysical crisis of Fernandez Britten, a melancholy ''private researcher'' who has earned the nickname ''the Heartbreaker'' for confirming the suspicions of clients who hire him to spy on their cheating lovers. After a career of exposing the bestiality of human nature, Britten longs to uncover a higher truth, the kind that elevates the beast and confers nobility on his own sleazy trade. The morose P.I., whose shadow-rimmed eyes and tiny, pinched mouth convey his despondent state, thinks he's found his means of redemption when an unhappy heiress hires him to disprove the police investigation's conclusion that her fiance's death was a suicide. Instead of bringing her satisfaction or solace, Britten discovers a truth so ugly that his instinct is to suppress it. But what kind of hero would that make him? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]