Gaboriau

“There is something epic about the Tour, and accessible to all at the same time, which makes it so unique,” said Philippe Gaboriau, a sociologist who has written a book about the race.

He seemed to have emerged from the ether, as Christie liked to tell it, though her careful reading of earlier detective-fiction greats — especially É�������� Gaboriau’s Monsieur Lecoq novels — was no doubt a contributing factor.

He seemed to have emerged from the ether, as Christie liked to tell it, though her careful reading of earlier detective fiction greats — especially É�������� Gaboriau’s Monsieur Lecoq novels — was no doubt a contributing factor.

Holmes's real-life model was Doyle's professor, hawk-eyed diagnostician Joseph Bell; writers from �������� Gaboriau to Edgar Allen Poe offered fictional prototypes.

By the 1880s, though, the genre was dominated by the newly translated works of French detective story pioneer �������� Gaboriau and by American dime novels featuring such masters of disguise as Old Sleuth.