THE MAN WITH THE BLACK FEATHER.....
Theophrastus Longuet is a retired manufacturer of rubber stamps in Paris. He now spends his days relaxing, safe from life’s vicissitudes. with his lovely wife Marceline and long time friend M. Lecamus. However into every life a little rain must fall and it becomes apparent that a perfect storm is about to arrive in the lives of our tranquil threesome. The malevolent spirit of a murdering brigand named Cartouche, who was executed in Paris in 1721, is about to disrupt their perfect lives, in a way that will change them all forever. Not even the enigmatic Mage, M. Eliphas de Saint-Elme de Taillebourg de la Nox, in his mysterious underground crypt, may be enough to save them all.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY.....
Gaston Leroux (May 6, 1868 – April 15, 1927) Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux was a French journalist and author of detective fiction. In the English speaking world, he is best known for writing the novel The Phantom of the Opera (Le Fantôme de l'Opéra, 1911), which has been made into several film and stage productions of the same name, notably the 1925 film starring Lon Chaney, and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical. His novel The Mystery of the Yellow Room is also one of the most famous locked room mysteries ever written. Leroux was born in Paris in 1868. He went to school in Normandy and studied law in Paris, graduating in 1889. He inherited millions of francs and lived wildly until he nearly reached bankruptcy. In 1890 he began working as a court reporter and theater critic for L'Écho de Paris. His most important journalism came when he began working as an international correspondent for the Paris newspaper Le Matin. He was present at, and covered, the 1905 Russian Revolution.
Another case at which he was present involved the investigation and in-depth coverage of the former Paris Opera (presently housing the Paris Ballet). The basement contained a cell that held prisoners of the Paris Commune. He suddenly left journalism in 1907, and began writing fiction. In 1919, he and Arthur Bernède formed their own film company, Société des Cinéromans to publish novels simultaneously and turn them into films. He first wrote a mystery novel entitled Le mystère de la chambre jaune (1908; The Mystery of the Yellow Room), starring the amateur detective Joseph Rouletabille. Leroux's contribution to French detective fiction is considered a parallel to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's in the United Kingdom and Edgar Allan Poe's in the United States. Leroux published his most famous work, The Phantom of the Opera, as a serial in 1909 and 1910 and as a book in 1911.
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