Hachette India

Dossier 113 (aka The Blackmailers)

Émile Gaboriau

Introducing M. Lecoq widely believed to be the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes

Monsieur Lecoq of the French Sûreté is called to investigate a bank robbery in one of the world's first detective novels, widely credited as the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes.

The book begins with a bank robbery with Fauvel's bank losing 350000 francs. Only two people in the bank had a key and the combination to the safe and they were Fauvel himself and his chief cashier, Prosper Bertomy. The case looks black against the cashier the only one to know about the money being put into the safe from the strong room.

As things look blacker and blacker for prosper amidst double-dealing, blackmail, and murder Monsieur Lecoq of the French Sûreté steps in to prove the young man's innocence in the face of incriminating evidence and unravel the truth behind a seemingly impossible crime.

Émile Gaboriau

Émile Gaboriau (18321873) was a French writer, novelist, journalist, and a pioneer of detective fiction. Gaboriau was born in the small town of Saujon, Charente-Maritime. He was the son of Charles Gabriel Gaboriau, a public official and his mother was Marguerite Stéphanie Gaboriau. Gaboriau became a secretary to Paul Féval, and after publishing some novels and miscellaneous writings, found his real gift in L'Affaire Lerouge He is probably best known for his stories involving a young police officer named Monsieur Lecoq, whose character was based on a real-life thief turned police officer, Eugène François Vidocq (17751857).