The Maze Agency, Volume 1 by Mike W. Barr

If you’re even a little interested in comic books, I do recommend the series, in particular Issues 4 (“The Return of Jack the Ripper”), 1 (“The Adventure of the Rogue’s Gallery”), 9 (“The English Channeler Mystery,” which includes Ellery Queen as a character!), and 6 (“Double Edge”). Barr went through several artists on the series, but the best was Adam Hughes, who drew most of the first dozen issues. It’s all a lot of fun (and would have made for a splendid TV show). While Mays and Webb are entertaining characters, the distinction here is that Barr is a big mystery fan, resulting in super-complex plots jam-packed with red herrings, impossible crimes, and false solutions for the unwary. So, yeah, Moonlighting or Hart to Hart or a thousand other such series you can think of. The main characters are private investigator Jennifer Mays and mystery writer Gabriel Webb, leading to a typical will-they-or-won’t-they between the protagonists.

Barr's first adventures of private eye Jennifer Mays and her boyfriend, true. Represented for the first time since their original publication, The Maze Agency, Vol. Art by Adam Hughes, Alan Davis, and Rick Magyar.

Barr has worked on several famous comic-book characters, including Superman, Batman, and Spider Man, but his writing quality varies wildly. Collects Maze Agency (1988-1991 1st Series Comico/Innovation) 1-5 and Annual 1. Barr’s The Maze Agency, which he’s brought with him to several different comic publishers. One series I found that mystery fans may enjoy is Mike W. About a year or so ago I started reading comic books for the first time since I was a kid, tackling such staples of the medium as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen and Neil Gaiman’s brilliant Sandman (highly, highly recommended).

The Maze Agency, Volume 1 by Mike W. Barr