Book #18

I am catching up on things.  I want to be up to date at the end of June, when I will have to admit that I am not going to make my goal.  So, there will be several more books appearing over the next week.

Arsene Lupin

Maurice LeBlanc

Now, during the Victorian era, everyone knows that Arthur Conan Doyle was writing the Sherlock Holmes stories, and though you may not know it yet, I am a huge Sherlock Holmes fan.  Now, some few out there who know the real me, will know that I speak French.  I spent two years in France, 35 years ago, and later took a minor in French.  So imagine my surprise when I found that while in English, Arthur Conan Doyle was writing about the great detective, Sherlock Holmes, there was, in France an author by the name of Maurice LeBlanc who was writing stories about Arsene Lupin, not a detective, but a great criminal, a gentleman burglar. 

I found that Amazon has a number of Arsene Lupin books, for free on Kindle.  Unfortunately, I cannot find anywhere that discusses the stories and novels and puts them into their proper order, either by publication, or story chronology, so I had to pick one at random, and this was it.

Now, I do not want to give away any spoilers, because the twists are what make this story fun, but Arsene's modus operandi is to send a letter to his victim saying exactly what he is going to steal and when, and then carry out the theft just as described.  In a theft that occurred three years before our story, the man who was robbed, after receiving the letter, actually hired guards, and when the guards arrived...they were men hired by Arsene. 

Also, in this story, Arsene plays a long game, the theft described above, is the same victim who is robbed in the story.  I found the whole thing a lot of fun.

Oh, and this time I read a translation.  The next book I read will be in the original language.