The creator of the Arsene Lupin, Maurice Leblanc, was born in Rouen in 1864. At the request of a Paris magazine, Je Sais Tout, he began a series of stories featuring the character Lupin, a ‘gentleman thief’, which appeared in this publication, starting in 1907. The blueprint for this new magazine was England’s Strand Magazine in which Conan Doyle had first introduced his character Sherlock Holmes.

The stories were wildly successful and later led to plays, TV adaptations and movies. The most memorable of these adaptations for an anglophone audience being the recent (but ongoing) Netflix series Lupin, starring Omar Sy. However, before this, in 1919 Agatha Christie reportedly considered basing her first detective on Lupin. Jean Cocteau wrote about the stories in his diaries, Sartre described Lupin as the Cyrano of the underworld. When Leblanc died in 1941 Ellen Queen pronounced him as the greatest thief in the whole world. Even T. S. Eliot was an avid reader of Lupin stories.

The Hollow Needle was Maurice Leblanc’s first novel. In this book Lupin finds himself playing a game of cat and mouse with young, amateur detective Isidore Beautrelet. His nemesis, Detective Ganimard and the famous English detective Sherlock Holmes also make appearances. Lupin is chasing the most valuable object he has ever had the opportunity to steal: the Hollow Needle, which hides unfathomable treasure and a secret that the kings of France have been handing down since the time of Julius
Caesar.

Lupin’s adventures are sheer, unadulterated, entertainment.