Gaston Leroux
2 books
- A locked room, a woman attacked inside it, and no way anyone got in or out. Rouletabille, the teenage reporter who cracks it, is cocky in a way that grows on you, and the solution actually plays fair.
- You get a wonderfully melodramatic Gothic mystery, with hidden passages beneath the Paris Opera, a masked Erik, and Christine caught between fear, pity, and fascination. The narration can be delightfully over-the-top, but the underground atmosphere and Erik’s wounded loneliness linger after the thrills fade.