Rouletabille

Joseph Rouletabille (pronounced "Rou-let-a-bill") is a fictional character created by Gaston Leroux, a French writer and journalist. Rouletabille is a journalist and amateur sleuth featured in several novels and other works, often presented as a more capable thinker than the police.

In the first novel, The Mystery of the Yellow Room, Rouletabille solves an attempted murder in a locked room mystery. The book reveals that Rouletabille is the nickname of 18-year-old journalist Joseph Josephin, who was raised in a religious orphanage in Eu, a small town near Fécamp.

In the novel Rouletabille meets Ballmeyer, an international criminal of great repute and many identities (a character possibly inspired by fictional Arsène Lupin). As Jean Roussel, Ballmeyer married a rich American heiress, Mathilde Stangerson, the Lady in Black of the second novel.

Ballmeyer returns in The Perfume of the Lady in Black at the end of the story, which takes place in a castle on the French Riviera. Rouletabille finds that he is the son of Ballmeyer and Stangerson. Soon afterwards, Rouletabille is summoned to Russia by the Czar, where he solves a murder at the Imperial Court.

The next novel takes place in 1912. The fearless journalist marries the beautiful Ivana Vilitchkov and defeats the brutal warlord Gaulow.

In Rouletabille chez Krupp, Rouletabille acts as a French secret agent and infiltrates the Krupp factories. This is one of the earliest espionage thrillers. Rouletabille saves Paris from being annihilated by a German missile.

In Le Crime de Rouletabille, the reporter is almost framed for Ivana's murder. Then, in Rouletabille chez les Bohémiens, he helps recover a sacred book stolen from the Gypsies.

Authorized Sequels by Noré Brunel:

The Mystery of the Yellow Room was adapted, fairly faithfully, for BBC Radio Four in 1998 starring Nicholas Boulton as Rouletabille and Geoffrey Whitehead as Inspector Larson, with a far looser adaptation of The Perfume of the Woman in Black following around a year later.

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