Emile Gaboriau

File No. 113 annotated Emile Gaboriau

File No. 113 is the third book in the Monsieur Lecoq by Émile Gaboriau. Published in 1867, it tells the story of a bank robbery. Whilst the police look with suspicion at the employees, Detective Lecoq sees something else. Emile Gaboriau is frequently credited with being the creator of the modern detective story. He drew on the 40 years of slow evolution of the crime story, following Edgar Allen Poe in the United States, and writers such as Paul Feval, Eugene Sue, Alexandre Dumas the elder, and Honore de Balzac in France, writing popular literature for the masses. Violence, lies, adultery, duplicity, murder, including fratricide and attempted parricide, falsely exchanged or abandoned sons and stolen birthrights, and ever more sins and villainies, find a place in Gaboriau's novels, as they do in many contemporary detective stories, television series and often even in real life. File No. 113 is no exception. On the surface, the crime seems simple. A bank's secure safe is robbed.