Book Review: Arsene Lupin by Maurice LeBlanc & Edgar Jepson
This should be a happy time for millionaire Gournay-Martin. Not only is he one of the richest men in France, but his daughter Germaine is finally getting married to the dashing Duke of Charmerace. But there is a cloud in his life. Three years ago, the arch-criminal Arsene Lupin succeeded in stealing some of the millionaire’s treasures, missing out only on a certain coronet. And now, Lupin’s calling card has come, saying that he will now take even that!
Sure enough, by a combination of misdirection, inside men and disguises, Lupin strikes again! But he still doesn’t have the coronet. Can Chief-Inspector Guerchard unriddle the trick before the thief steals everything on his list?
It seemed about time to read one of the original Lupin stories by Maurice Leblanc (1864-1941) but as it happens, this isn’t quite the novel I was expecting. Instead, it’s a novelization of a play Leblanc wrote featuring the gentleman burglar.
This is most obvious in the “staging” of the scenes, confining the action to specific rooms with some of the more exciting potential action left to descriptions in dialogue. Also, the ending is much more final than most Lupin stories, suggesting that the thief will be a criminal no more.
Good: It’s always fun to watch a clever criminal at work–for example, Lupin’s warning comes just late enough on Sunday that the telephone service has closed for the night, preventing a quick response. And Guerchard shows his mettle by sifting through the clues and slowly lifting away the layers of deception to reveal the truth.
Lupin’s class-related motives are touched on; he steals because it’s fun, but he specifically targets the wealthy and powerful not just because they have the best stuff, but because of how shabbily his mother was treated when she was a servant. M. Gournay-Martin and his daughter value their treasures for their monetary worth, rather than beauty, while Lupin’s tastes are more refined.
(A running joke in the early part is the wedding gifts: Germaine gets gaudy jewels from her father’s friends and business peers, while the nobility gives tasteful and practical but relatively inexpensive items like letter openers and inkwells.)
Less good: The narration wants us to sympathize with Sonia Kirchnoff, impoverished Russian émigré and companion to Germaine, rather than the soon to be bride herself. It doesn’t trust enough though to Germaine’s spoiled, materialistic personality, but instead is at pains to point out how much prettier Sonia is as well. Early on, a reader might cringe at the indications that the Duke is way more interested in Sonia than his fiancée; not a good sign for the marriage.
The police, apart from Guerchard, are depicted as dolts, but this is fairly standard for master criminal stories.
This is not one of the truly famous Arsene Lupin stories, but it is nicely self-contained and in the public domain so easily located. (My copy had some datafile artifacts.) I’d actually like to see the play version to see how some of the stagecraft would be performed.
