Shady Detectives, Elegant Criminals & Dark Avengers


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Author’s Portrait by Heather Marie © 2011

Robin Walz © 2024-2025

fiction

  • Émile Gaboriau, Father of the French Detective Novel

    Portrait of Émile Gaboriau, c. 1868. Unknown photographer; restoration by Jebulon. Gallica: Bibliothèque nationale de France. One wintry February night in Paris, Sûreté Inspector Gévrol and his police squad responded to a reported disturbance in the slums of the 13th arrondissement. As they approached a squalid cabaret known as La Poivière (the “Pepper Pot”), they

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  • The Crime Factory of Paul Féval

    Caricature of Paul Féval by André Gill. La Lune, September 16, 1866. Wikimedia Commons: Public Domain. In 1866, popular novelist Paul Féval lamented, “For several years now, the crime industry just hasn’t been delivering the goods.”[1] By his calculation, there were upwards of two million upright and intelligent French readers who were dying for crime

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