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A review by llysenw
Fantomas by Marcel Allain, Pierre Souvestre
4.0
Excellent. I don't know why I'd never heard of this series before. It's been around since 1911 and Wikipedia has a long description of it. It's more surprising that there's been nothing in English to speak of. Even more so considering something like six volumes were released in just the first year alone.
I lost track of the body count, but not counting the 150 or so who were blown up in a sabotaged ship, I think it was around 9, many of them gruesome. Wikipedia says that, played for comedy, the basic plot was taken as a basis for the Pink Panther movies, and I can see how that happened. The last of the murders was, by far, the most twisted (and clever). It was by proxy and serves as the mechanism for (spoiler) Fantomas escaping punishment and so the basis for the sequels.
This has it all: deception, disguises, (many) red herrings, false identities, murder, burglary, love, infatuation, vanity, and all the by good guys, bad guys, and in-between guys. My only real issue, and this is totally on me, is that this is very, very French. By that I mean that all the names and places are the most French they can possibly be. Not speaking French, it is a bit difficult to read all of those names and places without knowing how to pronounce them. Again, that's on me.
This was clearly translated almost immediately by someone very British. France at the time (1911) was very class conscious but I wonder how much the translator imposed the English class system on top of this. It certainly reads like it.
Anyway, it's very good. The wordsmithing is great and of its time. It looks as if the first four or five are the most popular. I may continue with those.
I lost track of the body count, but not counting the 150 or so who were blown up in a sabotaged ship, I think it was around 9, many of them gruesome. Wikipedia says that, played for comedy, the basic plot was taken as a basis for the Pink Panther movies, and I can see how that happened. The last of the murders was, by far, the most twisted (and clever). It was by proxy and serves as the mechanism for (spoiler) Fantomas escaping punishment and so the basis for the sequels.
This has it all: deception, disguises, (many) red herrings, false identities, murder, burglary, love, infatuation, vanity, and all the by good guys, bad guys, and in-between guys. My only real issue, and this is totally on me, is that this is very, very French. By that I mean that all the names and places are the most French they can possibly be. Not speaking French, it is a bit difficult to read all of those names and places without knowing how to pronounce them. Again, that's on me.
This was clearly translated almost immediately by someone very British. France at the time (1911) was very class conscious but I wonder how much the translator imposed the English class system on top of this. It certainly reads like it.
Anyway, it's very good. The wordsmithing is great and of its time. It looks as if the first four or five are the most popular. I may continue with those.