By Bryan Talbot
Publisher: Jonathon Cape
ISBN: 978-0224096249
The third instalment of Bryan Talbot’s alternative world steampunk crime thriller hits the ground running with a grisly murder, a shadowy cabal of business and industry, and nods to Wind In The Willows, Blake and Mortimer, Garfield, Robocop and Dangermouse in just the first few pages.
In the world of Grandville (an alternative name for Paris in a world where France won the Napoleonic War) humanoid animals are the norm and the doughfaces (humans) are rarely seen and are very much the underclass. The hero, DI LeBrock of Scotland Yard, is covertly asked to investigate a locked-room murder back in Grandville, a task that gradually reveals a shadowy plot to take control of the empire at horrific cost.
Bryan Talbot is clearly having a lot of fun with this series, melding science fiction with history, romance, comic and cartoon references, humour and good old fashioned adventure. The story even manages to take in the manipulation of the art world, with a rather wonderful poke at a cockerel called Jackson Pollo.
It could very easily fall between the many stools it straddles, but somehow Talbot’s enthusiasm and creativity keep it striding forward, page after page. And there’s quite a fan following now, with praise from the likes of Philip Pullman and Ian Rankin.
Like Alan Moore’s Top Ten and LOEG, the details in the background keep you occupied beyond the main thrust of the story. The rather tipsy Paddington Bear made me smile.
If you’ve ever enjoyed Talbot’s Luther Arkwright work then you should definitely be ordering your copy of Grandville – it’s fun, it’s clever and it’s refreshingly different.
And if you liked that: You really should check out the other two volumes in the series.
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