The Mystery of Champdoce is the brilliant conclusion to Gaboriau’s cycle of mystery stories, the Slaves of Paris.
Starting years before the events of Caught in the Net, this sequel recounts the history of the Duke de Champdoce, revealing what misfortunes laid the groundwork for Monsier Mascarin’s plot against him, a plot that can be solved only by Gaboriau’s great detective, Monsieur Lecoq.
Mascarin has learned a secret of the Champdoce family, and he concocts a plan to exploit it for his own ends, making use of his new disciple, Paul Violaine and coming head-to-head once again with young Andre. Monsieur Lecoq, a major influence on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, must untangle the threads of a conspiracy decades in the making in order to take down Mascarin and his henchmen.
The nineteenth-century sensation novel meets classic crime fiction as the mastermind Mascarin goes to work on his victims in a tale of fraud, extortion, murder, madness, and love.
For those looking for more mysteries from Émile Gaboriau, Caught in the Net and The Mystery of Orcival are available on audio from Blackstone Publishing and Skyboat Media.
É mile Gaboriau (1832–1873) was a French novelist and journalist who pioneered detective fiction long before anyone had heard the name “Sherlock Holmes.”
Stefan Rudnicki is an award winning audiobook narrator, director and producer. He was born in Poland and now resides in Studio City, California. He has narrated more than three hundred audiobooks and has participated in over a thousand as a writer, producer, or director. He is a recipient of multiple Audie Awards and AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as a Grammy Award, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Ray Bradbury Award. He received AudioFile’s award for 2008 Best Voice in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Along with a cast of other narrators, Rudnicki has read a number of Orson Scott Card's best-selling science fiction novels. He worked extensively with many other science fiction authors, including David Weber and Ben Bova. In reviewing the twentieth anniversary edition audiobook of Card’s Ender's Game, Publishers Weekly stated, "Rudnicki, with his lulling, sonorous voice, does a fine job articulating Ender's inner struggle between the kind, peaceful boy he wants to be and the savage, violent actions he is frequently forced to take." Rudnicki is also a stage actor and director.
Claire Bloom gained international fame in 1951 with her screen debut in Charles Chaplin’s motion picture Limelight. Among her many memorable films are Richard III, The Haunting, Look Back in Anger, and A Doll’s House.