[Monsieur Lecoq 03] • Le Dossier 113

Emile Gaboriau is frequently credited with being the creator of the modern

detective story. He drew on the 40 years of slow evolution of the crime story,

following Edgar Allen Poe in the United States, and writers such as Paul

Feval, Eugene Sue, Alexandre Dumas the elder, and Honore de Balzac in France,

writing popular literature for the masses. Violence, lies, adultery,

duplicity, murder, including fratricide and attempted parricide, falsely

exchanged or abandoned sons and stolen birthrights, and ever more sins and

villainies, find a place in Gaboriau's novels, as they do in many contemporary

detective stories, television series and often even in real life. File No. 113

is no exception. On the surface, the crime seems simple. A bank's secure safe

is robbed. One of the two men who holds the key must be guilty. One key-holder

is the bank's owner who lives above the bank with his family, the other is the

bank's trusted manager-a man like a son to the owner. What if neither is

guilty? How did this safe, with every security measure known and employed at

the time, get robbed? Leave it to Monsieur Lecoq of the Surete, a policeman of

many disguises and much guile to uncover the devastating truth of deceit,

betrayal, lies, murder and sordid family histories that lead to the crime."