Monsieur Lecoq
by Émile Gaboriau
1869 / 316 pages
Rating:  A+ / classic crime  police procedural –

I guess it’s the history embedded in classic lit which gets to me –  this is the first full length detective novel of the Western world.  It was published only three years after the death of Eugene Francois Vidocq, the first professional detective,  founder of the French national police force (Sûreté Nationale), and grand  inventor innovator of devices and methods.

Edgar Allen Poe was inspired by a news clipping about Vidocq to write the first detective story  and Wilkie Collins based much of The Moonstone by on the Vidocq.  Finally, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes was modeled on the criminal-detective.  >>>>MORE>>>>