Description
Arsene Lupin is back from his tenure in WW1 and under the pseudonym D. Luis Perenna (notice anything about that name?) to solve another tangled mess of mysteries in honor of his sadly deceased friend. As a Lupin book it’s one of the ones where you follow him the whole time as opposed to something like “The Hollow Needle” where the thief is more of a force of nature, although a couple of features stand out from the usual Lupin adventure mainly his constant cooperation with police force insistent on solving the case with or without “D. Luis”. I felt that it reads better than previous books as well, it might just be that I’m more used to Leblanc’s style of writing, the long directed monologues without interruptions, the verbose assertions of what people are doing or feeling, the (obviously) dated language and concepts but the quicker pace of the story serves that style well as well as the constant twists and recontextualization of supposedly solved events. (Eduardo Eloy)
