BOOK / GRANDVILLE BETE NOIRE. Bryan Talbot

FANTASY In Toad Hall, the lair of billionaire Baron Aristotle Krapaud, a cabal of industrialists and fat cats plot the overthrow of the French state with the intervention of fearsome armed automatons. Meanwhile, the brutal murder of a famous Parisian artist, mysteriously stabbed to death in his locked studio, is the subject of investigation by the tenacious Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard and his faithful deputy, Detective Roderick Ratzi. With a large cast of new characters and a blend of Holmesian deduction, action, and humor, Grandville Bête Noire continues the retro-futuristic adventures of Inspector LeBrock, begun in Grandville and continued in Grandville Mon Amour. This second installment in Bryan Talbot's series was nominated for the 2011 Hugo Award—the most prestigious science fiction award worldwide—for Best Graphic Novel. Bryan Talbot, considered one of the fathers of the modern British graphic novel, was inspired by the work of 19th-century French illustrator Gérard, who w