Grandville Bete Noire

Description

'The bastard child of Conan Doyle and Beatrix Potter, it's a gripping feast for the eyes.' Rachel Cooke, Observer The third volume of the Grandville series - Anthropomorphic steampunk detective fiction from graphic novel master Bryan Talbot The Badger is back! Follow the Badger! At Toad Hall, lair of multibillionaire Baron Aristotle Krapaud, a cabal of industrialists and fat cats plot the violent overthrow of the French state. Meanwhile, the brutal murder of a famous Parisian artist is subject to the investigations of the tenacious Detective Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard, placing him and his faithful adjunct, Detective Sergeant Roderick Ratzi, in pursuit of the mysterious masked assassin stalking the cut-throat commercial world of the Grandville art scene. As the body count mounts and events spiral exponentially out of control, aided by his brilliant deductive abilities and innate ferocity, LeBrock battles against outrageous odds in this funny, high octane thriller, an adventure shot through with both high art and comic book references, a glorious illegitimate offspring of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Ian Fleming - with animals! 'The bastard child of Conan Doyle and Beatrix Potter, it's a gripping feast for the eyes' Observer

Bryan Talbot was born in 1952. He has worked on underground comics, science fiction and superhero stories such as Judge Dredd and Batman- Legends of the Dark Knight. His books include Alice in Sunderland, Dotter of Her Father's Eyes (with Mary Talbot), the first graphic novel to win the Costa biography award, and the Grandville series.

I have greatly enjoyed the Grandville books. I think they're superbly designed, beautifully conceived, admirably written - everything about them is terrific... A graphic novel built on the solid foundation of a strong story. -- Philip Pullman The third and finest stand-alone volume in the award-winning 'scientific-romance-thriller' series... These ingeniously plotted fantasies will make you bark with laughter. -- Larushka Ivan-Zadeh * Metro * The bastard child of Conan Doyle and Beatrix Potter, it's a gripping feast for the eyes. -- Rachel Cooke * Observer * Both acerbic and hilarious. * Mr. Hyde * This ripping yarn of murder, mystery and the machinating arms tycoon Baron Krapaud of Toad Hall is both irresistibly exciting and sumptuously designed. -- David Langford * Telegraph *