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There's not much one can write about The Number without giving it all away. Then again, if you've ever heard of its auteur, graphic novelist/horror specialist Thomas Ott, you'll have a good idea what you're in for -- at 104 taut pages, it's a masterpiece.

Although he's got a small cult following, Zurich-born Ott isn't well known on this side of the Atlantic. There's no good reason for that. His dialogue-free comics require very little translation (unlike, say, the work of Marjane Satrapi, the Iranian-born, French-speaking artist behind Persepolis). Working without captions and word balloons, Ott's storytelling never falters: His characters are fully imagined and skillfully drawn, and his mastery of layout and pacing do the rest.

The book's full title is actually The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8; that also happens to be the MacGuffin that drives this dark creation. Not since TV's Lost have we encountered a more mysterious, vexing, ominous series of digits. On the hit show, "4 8 15 16 23 42" is the numeric key that allowed one character to win the lottery -- and then much misery followed. The Number's trajectory bears a certain resemblance. At first, our unnamed protagonist finds both love and money thanks to that bizarre numeric chain. But nothing is that simple in life -- especially not in a Thomas Ott tale. It's not giving anything away to suggest that the characters in this black-and-white comic noir don't end up in a sunny place. After all, our protagonist finds the list of numbers near the foot of an electric chair.

Ott's etched illustrations -- scratchboard masterworks of sequential storytelling -- demand a leisurely pace. The panels are plain yet gorgeous, simple yet filled with visual detail; Ott makes the eye linger, forcing the reader to slow down, amping up the foreboding. This is exactly the kind of chilling tale you don't want to read before going to bed, yet what better way to absorb it? Pleasant dreams.