MONSIEUR LECOQ

Emile Gaboriau (1833-1873) is an important figure in the history of detective fiction. A French journalist and novelist, he created the roman policier with a series of books involving private detective Monsieur Lecoq, who works logically. Lecoq was based on a real-life thief turned policeman named Francois Vidocq (1775-1857), whose memoirs mixed fiction and fact. Gaboriaus huge following was eclipsed by Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes. Interestingly, Holmes may have been at least partly based on another of Gaboriaus characters, consulting detective Father Tabaret, whose methods Monsieur Lecoq adopts in the first Lecoq book._,