Two hundred years ago, Britain lost the Napoleonic War and fell under the thumb of French domination. Gaining independence after decades of civil disobedience and anarchist bombings, the Socialist Republic of Britain is now a small, unimportant backwater connected by a railway bridge, steam-powered dirigible, and mutual suspicion to France. When a British diplomat's murder is made to look like suicide, ferocious Detective-Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard stalks a ruthless murder squad through the heart of a Belle Epoque Paris, the center of the greatest empire in a world of steam-driven hansom cabs, automatons, and flying machines. LeBrock's relentless quest can lead only to death, truth . . . or war.

When British diplomat Raymond Leigh-Otter is murdered in the tiny village of Nutwood, Scotland Yard Detective Inspector LeBrock finds the case taking him to Paris, the world's largest and most opulent city a.k.a. Grandville, capital of the world spanning French Empire, where he uncovers a powerful conspiracy to start a new war between France and Britain.

In Grandville Talbot brings us another steampunk masterpiece. Inspired by the work of the nineteenth-century French illustrator Gérard, who worked under the pseudonym 'Grandville' and frequently drew anthropomorphic animal characters, it tells the story of detective Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard as he stalks a gang of murderers through the heart of Belle Epoque Paris. In this alternative reality France is the major world power and its capital is thronged with steam-driven hansom cabs, automatons and flying machines. The characters are mostly animals, though there is an underclass of humans, often referred to as 'dough faces', who resemble the 'clear-line' characters of Hergé's Tintin books.

Visually stunning, Grandville is a fantastical and audacious rollercoaster ride that will add to Talbot's reputation as one of the best graphic novelists in the world.