Customer Reviews

The Champdoce Mystery

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CAUGHT IN THE NET and THE CHAMPDOCE MYSTERY form one continuous story. If you buy this book, be sure you also order CAUGHT IN THE NET, which should be read first. Otherwise you'll miss the full drama of a complex plot.

In CAUGHT IN THE NET, a criminal syndicate has various horrid projects in work, among them a terrible deception for the Duke de Champdoce. THE CHAMPDOCE MYSTERY takes us some years back in the Duke's history, so we learn what misfortunes laid the groundwork for the conspiracy against him.

The bad guys are perhaps the most enjoyable characters. They are often on the verge of double-crossing each other. They're wonderfully cunning, especially the master criminal Mascarin. Arthur Conan Doyle later borrowed some characteristics from Mascarin for Professor Moriarty.

Other characters include proud aristocrats with terrible tempers, women of fashion who value a new dress above a husband, young women who dare all for love, faithful and faithless servants and wily street urchins.

The great detective Lecoq has a role in the plot so secretive that the reader almost despairs of ever meeting him. This of course adds to the tension.

The reader can look forward to an exciting mix of fraud, extortion, murder, forgery, madness, adulterous passions and lofty love affairs in these novels. They successfully combine two genres: the nineteenth-century sensation novel and classic crime fiction.

CAUGHT IN THE NET and THE CHAMPDOCE MYSTERY were originally published in 1868 under one title: LES ESCLAVES DES PARIS (THE SLAVES OF PARIS). Fans of Gaboriau are almost sure to enjoy them. But if you're new to this accomplished French author, I suggest you start with THE WIDOW LEROUGE, where the methods of Lecoq are introduced.