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Arsène Lupin #18
Victor, de la brigade mondaine
Avant le vol des bons de la Défense nationale et les assassinats qui suivirent, la renommée de Victor, de la Brigade mondaine, n'excédait pas le cercle restreint de ses chefs et de ses collègues.
Il fallut pour le mettre en évidence, qu'apparût brusquement en face de lui cet extraordinaire, ce formidable personnage d'Arsène Lupin, qui allait donner à cette ténébreuse affaire sa signification et son intérêt spécial. Les qualités déjà remarquables du vieil inspecteur furent portées à leur paroxysme par le prodigieux adversaire que lui opposaient les circonstances. C'est leur lutte sournoise, ardente, implacable, poursuivie dans l'ombre d'abord, puis en pleine clarté, que nous raconte Victor, de la Brigade mondaine.
Il fallut pour le mettre en évidence, qu'apparût brusquement en face de lui cet extraordinaire, ce formidable personnage d'Arsène Lupin, qui allait donner à cette ténébreuse affaire sa signification et son intérêt spécial. Les qualités déjà remarquables du vieil inspecteur furent portées à leur paroxysme par le prodigieux adversaire que lui opposaient les circonstances. C'est leur lutte sournoise, ardente, implacable, poursuivie dans l'ombre d'abord, puis en pleine clarté, que nous raconte Victor, de la Brigade mondaine.
188 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1933
7 people are currently reading
500 people want to read
About the author
Maurice Leblanc
2,069 books945 followersMaurice Leblanc (1864 - 1941) was a French novelist, best known as the creator of gentleman thief (later detective) Arsène Lupin.
Leblanc began as a journalist, until he was asked to write a short story filler, and created, more gallant and dashing than English counterpart Sherlock Holmes.
Leblanc began as a journalist, until he was asked to write a short story filler, and created, more gallant and dashing than English counterpart Sherlock Holmes.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
May 27, 2023
كان من المفترض انها تكون مشوقة أكتر من كده.
May 23, 2021
La fine mi ha sorpreso. Devo dire che non l'avevo pensato che .
August 29, 2023
Quite enjoyable.
May 1, 2020
Un autre excellent Lupin! Dans ce roman, on assiste à la lutte entre Lupin et Victor. Victor résout tour-à-tour, le vol des bons de la Défense nationale et les assassinats qui suivirent. Ce qu'il veut, c'est coffrer Lupin. Comment va-t-il s'y prendre, tout simplement en s’immisçant dans la bande d’Antoine Bressacq, qui on ne s'en doute pas est Lupin. Mais Lupin sait reconnaître les dangers et veut, par dessus tout, sauvegarder sa renommée et récupérer des millions. J'ai bien aimé l'aventure car on ne se doute jamais de ce qui va se passer par la suite mais tout se case à la fin et Lupin réussit à tirer son aiguille du jeu...
December 13, 2020
Un Lupin qui fonctionne bien avec une approche intéressante puisqu’on y suit non pas Lupin mais son poursuivant. Le dénouement est attendu mais fonctionne bien. On retrouve bien ce qui faisait le charme des premiers Lupin
August 12, 2023
Ok avec des retournements de situation spectaculaires si l'auteur a pris le temps de poser des indices ce qui n'est pas le cas ici. Du coup très déçue par le soi-disant "coup de maître" de la fin.
April 20, 2025
Lupin's Autopsychography
For decades, Maurice Leblanc consistently sought to bring to his fans something fresh in each of his books, and this time around in Victor of the Brigade Mondaine, he wrote as if he were starting a spinoff of the original series, expanding the universe of the franchise with a new character -- much like Disney keeps doing with Star Wars. Leblanc also sought to innovate in format, because VfBM reads from the beginning and almost to the last page like a traditional detective story in the style of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, with very few touchpoints with Arsène Lupin's adventures (which means not much fan service). There is no real antagonist to defeat, no real danger to overcome, just a long investigation to discover the culprits among the usual suspects. Even the setting is more constrained than in other more epic books with big-screen scenery, here just limited to the crime scenes and hideouts in and around Paris.
Designed as the protagonist of this spinoff, Victor Hautin of the Brigade Mondaine is relatively pale compared with the Arsène Lupin of the core classics. He even falls short of other police officers in previous books, like Ganimard or Béchoux. Additionally, while the plot moves smoothly, part of it is almost inconsequential. Indeed, it is as if Leblanc intended to create a decoy by indulging the reader with the information on the murders of Father Lescot and Elise Masson right in the opening lines of the book as a distraction, like a magician telling the audience to pay attention to his hands while he is preparing the trick somewhere else. So the book depends heavily on how the tension builds and is discharged in the finale.
Leblanc's efforts to conceal the final plot twist are almost maliciously misleading, especially in the way Lupin embeds purpose and intent into his disguise. No spoilers here, but suffice it to say that Lupin here goes much as Fernando Pessoa in Autopsychography : "the poet is a pretender/whose pretense is so utterly real/that even the pain he renders/is the pain he truly feels". (my free translation from the original Portuguese).
Granted, by the time of the writing of this book, fans were not only pretty much familiar with the plot devices Leblanc had used in previous books but also with all sorts of storytelling techniques that had already become part of the cinematic lexicon. So it was surely becoming harder for Leblanc to surprise the reader, which may have led him to take a gamble to power up the plot twist, even at risk of having the reader halt for a moment and think, "wait a minute..."
After reading so many Lupin books, I may well have become too demanding if not intolerant of Leblanc and the course of action he took to keep the franchise alive, like many fans who misappropriate their favorite characters to their own liking. As Pessoa says in the second stanza of Autopsychography : "And those who read him/In his pain, they feel it intense/Neither of the pains he has given/But just the one they don’t sense." So I wouldn't be surprised if, researching Maurice Leblanc further, I realized that I was feeling a pain that never existed.
For decades, Maurice Leblanc consistently sought to bring to his fans something fresh in each of his books, and this time around in Victor of the Brigade Mondaine, he wrote as if he were starting a spinoff of the original series, expanding the universe of the franchise with a new character -- much like Disney keeps doing with Star Wars. Leblanc also sought to innovate in format, because VfBM reads from the beginning and almost to the last page like a traditional detective story in the style of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, with very few touchpoints with Arsène Lupin's adventures (which means not much fan service). There is no real antagonist to defeat, no real danger to overcome, just a long investigation to discover the culprits among the usual suspects. Even the setting is more constrained than in other more epic books with big-screen scenery, here just limited to the crime scenes and hideouts in and around Paris.
Designed as the protagonist of this spinoff, Victor Hautin of the Brigade Mondaine is relatively pale compared with the Arsène Lupin of the core classics. He even falls short of other police officers in previous books, like Ganimard or Béchoux. Additionally, while the plot moves smoothly, part of it is almost inconsequential. Indeed, it is as if Leblanc intended to create a decoy by indulging the reader with the information on the murders of Father Lescot and Elise Masson right in the opening lines of the book as a distraction, like a magician telling the audience to pay attention to his hands while he is preparing the trick somewhere else. So the book depends heavily on how the tension builds and is discharged in the finale.
Leblanc's efforts to conceal the final plot twist are almost maliciously misleading, especially in the way Lupin embeds purpose and intent into his disguise. No spoilers here, but suffice it to say that Lupin here goes much as Fernando Pessoa in Autopsychography : "the poet is a pretender/whose pretense is so utterly real/that even the pain he renders/is the pain he truly feels". (my free translation from the original Portuguese).
Granted, by the time of the writing of this book, fans were not only pretty much familiar with the plot devices Leblanc had used in previous books but also with all sorts of storytelling techniques that had already become part of the cinematic lexicon. So it was surely becoming harder for Leblanc to surprise the reader, which may have led him to take a gamble to power up the plot twist, even at risk of having the reader halt for a moment and think, "wait a minute..."
After reading so many Lupin books, I may well have become too demanding if not intolerant of Leblanc and the course of action he took to keep the franchise alive, like many fans who misappropriate their favorite characters to their own liking. As Pessoa says in the second stanza of Autopsychography : "And those who read him/In his pain, they feel it intense/Neither of the pains he has given/But just the one they don’t sense." So I wouldn't be surprised if, researching Maurice Leblanc further, I realized that I was feeling a pain that never existed.
September 8, 2025
Meu terceiro livro sobre Arsene Lupin. Confesso que o final foi o menos interessante até agora. O plot twist do final faz sentido, mas não é legal, talvez na época fazia sentido, mas hoje pareceu forçado.
A história em si é bem interessante. Deixa bastante espaço para manobrar em torno do problema principal, enquanto outras histórias ocorrem em paralelo.
Para mim, é uma recomendação fraca. Mas, ainda assim, um bom livro de fantasia investigativa.
A história em si é bem interessante. Deixa bastante espaço para manobrar em torno do problema principal, enquanto outras histórias ocorrem em paralelo.
Para mim, é uma recomendação fraca. Mas, ainda assim, um bom livro de fantasia investigativa.
July 29, 2024
يتم اكتشاف سرقة سندات بقيمة كبيرة جدا من البنك على يد أحد العاملين ولكن للحظ يتم سرقتها منه وعند معرفة الشرطة بالأمر وخاصة المحقق فيكتور قرروا تتبع هذه السندات لنبدأ رحلة البحث التي سيتضح صلتها باللص الشهير أرسين لوبين وها تزداد عزيمة المحقق فيكتور على القبض عليه والحصول على السندات .
نتعرف على شخصيات قادها حظها لنيل هذه السندات ورغبتهم في الاحتفاظ بها ولك لا تلبث أن تقع في يد آخر. يتم وضع الخطط والمؤامرات حتى تنكشف الحقيقة الصادمة بالنهاية والتي كانت الشيء الوحيد الغير متوقع.
رواية ذات طالع كلاسيكي تعتمد على حدس المحقق وعقلية المجرم والتخطيط اللازم.
إثارة ولكن هادئة .
نتعرف على شخصيات قادها حظها لنيل هذه السندات ورغبتهم في الاحتفاظ بها ولك لا تلبث أن تقع في يد آخر. يتم وضع الخطط والمؤامرات حتى تنكشف الحقيقة الصادمة بالنهاية والتي كانت الشيء الوحيد الغير متوقع.
رواية ذات طالع كلاسيكي تعتمد على حدس المحقق وعقلية المجرم والتخطيط اللازم.
إثارة ولكن هادئة .
July 14, 2018
Me gusto este libro, si bien Sherlock Holmes continúa siendo mi favorito, el estilo de Arsene Lupin no tiene comparación. Me ha gustado esta novela y creo que continuaré leyendo más novelas de sus aventuras.
September 13, 2021
Uma aventura excepcional de Lupin. Mais uma vez se transforma e proporciona a todos uma visão completamente diferente de sua atuação e responsabilidade. Livro excelente.
August 6, 2023
مغامرة استثنائية من لوبين. مرة أخرى يتم تغييره ويوفر للجميع وجهة نظر مختلفة تمامًا عن دورهم ومسؤوليتهم. كتاب ممتاز.
August 27, 2023
الروايات الاخرى اجمل . و خاصه التي تحتوي على قصص قصيره . هذا الجزء الاحداث بطيئه و فيها تكرار تشعرك بالملل و الترجمه لا روح فيها لكي تشدك للقراءه
September 2, 2023
عجبتني الرواية، مع إني بفضل شيرلوك هولمز وأشوفه المفضل لدي، إلا إن أسلوب أرسين لوبين مالوش مثيل. أعجبتني هذه الرواية وأعتقد أنني سأستمر في قراءة المزيد من روايات مغامراته.
January 27, 2024
بطلي القصة المحقق فيكتور و أرسين لوبين تدور كل أحداث الرواية حول فيكتور و هو يبحث أرسين لوبين و لكن النهاية صادمة
May 13, 2024
في مؤلفات ارسين لوبين انت تعيش متعة شارلك هولمز لكن هناك تعيش مع القبض على المجرم وهنا تعيش كيفية التملص من الشرطة
June 26, 2024
Calkiem dobra rozrywka.
September 25, 2024
Bardzo dobra książka, pewien aspekt da się przewidzieć. Pomysłowość Victora przy rozwiązywaniu spraw czy też ściganiu Gentlemana Włamywacza potrafi się podobać. Inteligentna postać. Polecam.
August 7, 2025
مش احسن حاجة
September 12, 2023
حكاية شيقة باسلوب سلس
سرقة تسع سندات دفاع وطني - تسعمائة ألف فرانك من البنك... القضاء على ثلاثة هواة متعاقبين للنهب. مقتل رجل وامرأة.
سرقة تسع سندات دفاع وطني - تسعمائة ألف فرانك من البنك... القضاء على ثلاثة هواة متعاقبين للنهب. مقتل رجل وامرأة.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews