cauvain

Is this the book that inspired Sherlock Holmes?Appearing in 1871, sixteen years before the great British detective made his appearance, the Frenchman Maximilien Heller was a misanthropic, drug taking private detective with an extraordinary gift for observation and logical deduction, and fully conversant with the chemical science and forensic practices of the day. He was a master of disguise and his audacious exploits were chronicled by his friend and confidant, a doctor. Sound familiar?Be that as it may, The Killing Needle is a seminal work by any standards: fast moving, well plotted and well written, it chronicles the adventures of a talented young detective determined to risk all to save an innocent man and bring a master criminal to justice.Published before The Big Bow Mystery and before The Mystery of the Yellow Room, it is also a locked room milestone, the first to use a technique cited in the Clayton Rawson/John Dickson Carr locked room lectures. For information about other locked room/impossible crime novels, including the works of Paul Halter, one of the contemporary masters of the genre, please visit: www.lockedroominternational.com

Henry Cauvin (1847-1899) who, despite the English spelling of his forename, was born in Paris to French parents. He wrote twelve novels, of which Maximilien Haller/The Killing Needle was the first, written when he was twenty-four years old. Little else is known about him, except that he was Treasurer of the Eure region of France during the IIIrd Republic.