The Best of Lupin: Adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Thief by Maurice Leblanc, Martin Walker (Introduction)

A selection of classic stories featuring France's answer to Sherlock Holmes: a brilliant master criminal with a mischievous sense of humor—now the inspiration for the major streaming series Lupin.

Arsène Lupin is a gentleman and a thief, a world-famous master of disguise and a planner of elaborate heists. His exploits are regularly splashed across newspaper pages, entertaining all of France as Inspector Ganimard of the Paris Police fruitlessly pursues him. Lupin often turns detective himself when it suits him, solving puzzles that have stumped the experts, and occasionally he even matches wits with his rival from England, “Herlock Sholmes.”

A bane to the powerful and generous to the powerless, Lupin is exceedingly witty, marvelously clever, and always a gentleman. The twenty-two delightful stories in The Best of Lupin, drawn from five collections published nearly a century ago by Maurice Leblanc, have stood the test of time and are ripe for rediscovery.