So, I bet you’re wondering what came next on the pile. You may also hazard a guess that it was the weird French think that I talked about last time. It’s a lot more light hearted than last time, I promise! This book is available FREE in eBook form from Project Gutenberg, a truly superb website that offers thousands upon thousands of free public domain eBooks, basically if the author has been dead for 80 years (I think) their work becomes public domain. If you have a moment then have a look, or even donate to them. If you don’t have an eBook reader then download the PDF and read it off the screen, it’s a series of short, fun stories so it won’t tax your eyes too much!
Arsène Lupin is, as the title suggests, a gentleman burglar par excellence. Written around the same time as the Sherlock Holmes stories he is, or I like to think of him as, the Sherlock that found himself dedicated to crime and burglary. Suave, sophisticated and always the gentleman he is a class above the rest, often advertising his crimes and adventures in the newspapers of France. Think a bit like Mickey from Hustle but, when not in one of his brilliant disguises, in immaculate frock coat and tails.
Our introduction to the man comes from a narrative of a steamer crossing the Atlantic Ocean to America. The wealthy passengers hear that the famed thief Lupin is actually posing as a passenger and begin to fear for their possessions. Fears that soon come to light with a series of mysterious thefts (think the sort of locked room mysteries which Jonathan Creek would be called to solve). From this first story we go through a series of 9 tales ranging from the very beginnings of Lupin’s life of crime to his more recent exploits. The chronology jumps around in much the same way as the more famous (at least in the English speaking world) works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and you come to inhabit the same world. The stories are told in the same exquisitely brief way and are fantastically cheeky and whimsical although they lack some of the focus and clarity you get from ‘Watson’s’ writing.
Sherlock Holmes even makes an appearance himself! In the final story the two characters finally meet, although in the original versions Sherlock Holmes had to be changed to Herlock Sholmes (I love the blatantness of it!), leading to the next set of stories “Arsène Lupin Versus Herlock Sholmes.” If you have time to kill then investigate the relationship between these two colossal characters on the internet, it’s a very distracting way to spend 15 minutes and will whet your appetite nicely for the book.
Overall these stories are absolutely brilliant and I can’t do them justice in a review, you’ll just have to find out for yourself. If you love Sherlock Holmes then you really should read about his nefarious shadow, it’ll even make you feel all cultured, AND IT’S FREE! What more could a person want?
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