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Here is a revised description with more plot included in the first paragraph and more cultural context in the second. Note that I felt like I should cite the Robin Walz book but am not sure how, so would appreciate guidance there...
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The savage murder of the Marquise de Langrune in her chateau leaves local authorities baffled. The preeminent detective from Paris, Inspector Juve, recognizes in the case the hand of Fantômas—a criminal so prodigiously evil and elusive that many consider him to be a myth. Following the arch-criminal’s trail of murders, jewelry heists, and bombings, the indomitable Juve tracks suspects from the dive bars of the underworld to the ballrooms of high society, donning as many disguises as his shapeshifting nemesis in the process.
Published in 1911, Fantômas was first conceived when publisher Arthème Fayard sought out Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain to create a new series that would capitalize on the French public’s appetite for detective novels—Arsène Lupin, Zigomar, and Nick Carter were already popular characters whose exploits could be read in periodicals of the time. The two collaborators used an ingenious form of literary mass production, with each one writing alternate chapters, to write a sequel every month for several years. The exploits, elaborate crimes, indeterminate identities, technological gadgetry, and gruesome violence made it a hit with the public, and the 32 volumes written by Souvestre and Allain sold over five million copies. But Fantômas reached beyond the typical audience for pulp fiction, as well, receiving tributes and praise from luminaries of the avant-garde like Guillaume Apollinaire, André Breton, Max Jacob, René Magritte, and other artists, who read the stories at the level of their imaginary poetics and appreciated the impossible paradoxes and displaced identities therein.
N.B. This synopsis is indebted to the work of Robin Walz (see: Pulp Surrealism: Insolent Popular Culture in Early Twentieth-Century Paris. University of California Press, 2000).
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Cheers,
Dylan
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