The Lerouge Case

The Lerouge Case is a pioneering crime novel that not only introduced the amateur detective (Tabaret) who, as Sherlock Holmes did later, uses acute observation and logic to solve crimes but is also a fascinating work of fiction in its own right, full of twists and turns of plot and complex and flawed characters. The story begins with the discovery of a murdered old woman in a provincial village. The crime was obviously staged to look like a burglary, but the true motive only becomes known by tracing a series of relationships and events—and the dark secret that binds them together.