Customer Reviews

Monsieur Lecoq: The Mystery of Orcival

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The Mystery of Orcival was published in 1867, a year after The Widow Lerouge. The wily detective Monsieur Lecoq, who appeared briefly in The Widow Lerouge, comes into his glory in this book.

Lecoq is a master of disguises and a keen observer of clues that no one else sees. His methods inspired those of Sherlock Holmes.

The Mystery of Orcival is a complex tale of crime, passion, remorse and revenge. The action is triggered by the brutal murder of the beautiful young Countess de Trémorel.

We quickly suspect the identity of the murderer, and Lecoq confirms it fairly early on. But this is a why-do-it rather than a who-done-it. The real focus of the book is psychological. The murderer is quite reluctantly driven to murder by his own weaknesses. One lie, one folly, one crime leads to another.

Besides the drama of detection, there's the drama among the "men of justice." To pursue his investigation successfully, Lecoq has to work with the mayor of Orcival, the judge of instruction and the justice of the peace - each with his own theory or agenda. Gaboriau is a tremendous delineator of character and fully develops even the most minor personages.

Other treats in store for the reader? We get to visit the barricaded living quarters of Lecoq, who has any number of vengeful criminals gunning for him. And we encounter the frightening old woman servant who watches over him. There are a number of unexpected plot twists, too, and the one at the end is the most satisfying of all.

I'm thrilled to have discovered Emile Gaboriau, who is really one of the great nineteenth-century novelists. All the inquiries of Monsieur Lecoq are on my reading list.