Books
When it comes to detective fiction, American popular taste has traditionally run to the hard-boiled (Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler) or the moralistic (Agatha Christie, P.D. James). No doubt it’s the Puritan legacy that makes it hard for us to enjoy a crime story unless somebody in it suffers. Maybe that’s why Maurice Leblanc’s stories featuring the gleeful thief/detective Arsène Lupin have never enjoyed the same following in the United States that they’ve always had in Europe. Many American mystery fans have never even heard of Lupin—a situation that’s about to change with the publication of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Thief (Penguin Classics, 279 pp., $14), a new selection of the best of Leblanc’s tales edited by regular Scene contributor Michael Sims.
Lupin is a rogue in the tradition of E.W. Hornung’s Raffles—an unapologetic outlaw who spreads equal parts charm and terror as he goes about making rich people a little less so. He made his first appearance in 1905 when an editor asked Leblanc to produce an adventure story along the lines of the highly popular Sherlock Holmes tales. The result, “The Arrest of Arsène Lupin,” was a great hit. Readers loved the insouciant criminal mastermind who left wealthy victims his calling card—“Arsène Lupin Gentleman-Burglar”—along with the occasional penciled insult to those he seemed to spare: “Will return when your things are genuine.”
As Lupin’s career continued in two decades of stories and novels, he morphed from master criminal to master detective—though his cooperation with the police was always directed to his own advantage. Reform would have been unthinkable for Lupin, as would a life without romance. Leblanc makes Lupin a rogue with a heart, often motivated by his tender feelings—or at least his lust—for fair ladies. With women he even shows the odd flash of vulnerability: “He would have liked to exonerate himself, to seek excuses, to show his life in its bolder and greater aspects. But the words jarred upon him before they were uttered, and he felt the absurdity and impertinence of any explanation.”
As he did with last year’s The Annotated Archy and Mehitabel, Sims provides valuable context for the stories in his readable introduction and notes, including an overview of Leblanc’s career and a quickie history of the origins of detective fiction. No one can wade through a wealth of detail more effortlessly than Sims, and his introduction here will likely send readers in search of more of mystery fiction’s early heroes.
Michael Sims will discuss Arsène Lupin at Davis-Kidd Booksellers at 6 p.m. May 8.