Customer Reviews

Arsene Lupin in 813

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Four years or so after the events in The Hollow Needle, 813 serves up just as much mystery and adventure in a format that is slightly more cohesive and pleasant to read.

For those, like me, who care about format:
This publication by Wildside Press includes eight black and white illustrations by Charles Chrombie.
The wide margins and newspaper column-like text of Wildside's Arsene Lupin vs. Sherlock Holmes has not made its return in this volume.
And the book is almost completely free of typographical errors.

I think that the hollow needle, because of rhthm, plot, and wit remains the best Lupin Novel. But 813 is probably the best organized Lupin story.
In other Lupin novels, such as the blonde phantom, one has the impression that Leblanc writes a short story, come to its end, finds a weak link to a new beginning, starts a new story, and so on for the whole novel. I would say that this is true also for the Hollow Needle.
But 813 is a major fresco, with Lupin accused of a murder which he has not committed, with Lupin attempting to find the real culprits and free himself of accusations, with a greater variety and complexity of characters (Genevieve, Victoire,...) than any other Lupin adventure.
It's a real treat and really as good as it gets.
the incipit of the novel would have been appropriate for an adventure of Fantomas, but then the Lupinesque flavor emerges and it is as good as ever.