Monsieur Lecoq — Volume 1

L'enquête

Emile Gaboriau

• Publisher: Perlego
• Year: 2008
• eBook ISBN: 9700000008650
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

Emile Gaboriau was a 19th century French writer and journalist best known for his detective stories. L'Affaire Lerouge (1866) was his first detective novel. This novel introduced a young police officer named Monsieur Lecoq, who was the hero in three of Gaboriau's later detective novels. Monsieur Lecoq was based on a real-life thief turned police officer, Eugène François Vi docq. Lecoq is describes as follows, The young police agent to whom Gevrol abandoned what he thought an unnecessary investigation was a debutant in his profession. His name was Lecoq. He was some twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, almost beardless, very pale, with red lips, and an abundance of wavy black hair. He was rather short but well proportioned; and each of his movements betrayed unusual energy. There was nothing remarkable about his appearance, if we except his eyes, which sparkled brilliantly or grew extremely dull, according to his mood; and his nose, the large full nostrils of which had a surprising mobility.