He is the phantom who haunts the halls of French nobility. A master of disguise, an unrivaled escape artist, and a thief who takes only from the corrupt. At the Château de Charmerace, the wedding of the decade is underway when the guests begin discovering that priceless heirlooms have vanished overnight, replaced only by calling cards bearing the name Arsène Lupin. The police are helpless against a criminal who thinks three moves ahead, invades society's most fortified bastions, and leaves his victims admiring the elegance of their own robbery. Yet Lupin is no mere thief. He is a strange justice, redistributing the ill-gotten wealth of aristocrats and bankers while mocking the pretensions of a society built on inheritance and hypocrisy. First introduced in 1905, this gentleman thief became an instant French cultural icon, the criminal counterpart to Sherlock Holmes, and the progenitor of every charming rogue to follow. Leblanc writes with delicious wit and an architect's precision, constructing puzzles within puzzles while revelling in the absurdity of respectable people who deserve to be fleeced.
