Author: Maurice LeBlanc
Series: Arsène Lupin #10
Genre: French Classics, Mystery, Thriller
Translator was not specified. This is a Wilco Book
Original publication date: 1920
Book description (from back cover): "Tonight" he moaned, believing that he was making himself heard and that he was in the secretary's room. "Tonight! The job is fixed for tonight! You'll see... The mark of the teeth!... It's awful!... Oh, the pain I'm in!... It's the poison! Save me! Help!"
The voice died away. He repeated several times, as though in a nightmare:
"The teeth! The teeth! They're closing!"
An astonishing inheritance and a series of uncanny murders... Like puppets on a string, the oblivious victims are drawn into a whirlwind of treacherous plots and shadowy players. The conspiracy has the police by the throat, as suspects fall with unnatural accuracy.
Will the mark be lifted before the teeth close in with mechanical precision, yet again?
Review:
Arsene Lupin the master gentleman thief and master of disguise is believed to have died. He reappears after the war as Don Luis Perenna. The story takes off with Don Perenna is approached by a group of lawyers with a request from one f his late friend to locate some family relations with whom he had no contact but their existence is known to him to be from a mother side. The objective is to find the family relations and have a fabulous inheritance dived among them in equal parts. The catch, if no heirs are found- the inheritance will pass to the good Don Perenna. So even after he promises to do his outmost effort to find the heirs within the timeframe provided some people will surely put his sincerity to question. Afterall is it not natural t wish to get your hands on millions?
The next shoe drops. A series of crimes and murders take place in cascade and the heirs are "found" but either dead or die in turn as they are being revealed.
The police, as they are obviously involved find out about the inheritance claim and the circumstances to be met for the claim. As the murder continue to occur left and right, it seems like Don Perenna is actually not all that great. Even if the characters keep going on and on on how brilliant, what a genius the guy is. So it looks kind of lame the fact that his "plans" keep going wrong and he keeps being wrong on his suspects. The we have a woman enter into the story and he's hopelessly in love?
How can he be so flabbergasted by a woman he barely knows? Also she is assigned the role of victim and innocent simply because she dislikes Perenna (the most surprising thing as every women h meets falls for his charms in a few minutes of coming in contact with him) and because she looks like such a fair maiden. LeBlanc never improved in his portrayal of women.
Its a nice conclusion, but it felt a big off- the plot felt like it was being dragged for no reason other than to make it have a big age count. The plot twists are as usual over the top and super unbelievable but they are never very realistic to begin with.
At least we completed the series. It is definitely not one of my favorites but I didn't hate it, it felt ok. But after a days of having complete it- now I can hardly remember the details. It will be something better if I reread it? This might need to be revisited to see if I change my mind at a later date.
I see why its a classic, its a super over the top book and it has such highs and downs that it should be an attention grabber. Unfortunately it has not aged as well as I hoed. But that is a very common opinion on the "classics". I'm sure there are a whole lot of people who love this book, each to their own of course but this is not a book I will be recommending. The classics that feel like a drag to read give a very bad reputation to the general public- we need to find other options to try to make reading more appealing.
The boo was used for the challenges:
Around the world- the author is from France
Complete series
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