Caught in the Net (Dodo Press) -

Emile Gaboriau

Dodo Press

2007

320 páginas

10h 40m

ISBN-13: 9781406517026

"Can it be true," she continued, "that scoundrels exist in our country who are viler than the most cowardly murderers, men who trade in the shameful secrets that they have learned, and batten upon the money they earn by their odious trade? I heard of such creatures before, but declined to believe it; for I said to myself that such an idea only existed in the unhealthy imaginations of novel writers." (Émile Gaboriau)

Caught in the Net, the first volume of Gaboriau's Slaves of Paris, centers on two young, penniless men who become trapped in a net of corruption and deception.

Andre, a painter, is in love with Sabine, but they must meet in secret for Sabine comes from a noble family and Andre most prove his worth in society before they are able to marry.

Monsieur Mascarin, a master criminal who obscures his dealings behind the facade of an employment agency, is also concerned with the marital status of Sabine, and while he wants to prevent her impending engagement to the man picked by her parents, it is not Andre he desires her to marry. Meanwhile Paul, a composer, is destitute and on the brink of starvation when a neighbor suggests he pays a visit to M. Mascarin's employment agency. M. Mascarin lifts Paul out of his impoverished existence only to use him as a pawn in his own treacherous game.

[Excerpt from Caught in the Net]:
Ah! Answered the landlady rather spitefully. I have made up my mind regarding that young lady some time ago; she is a sight too pretty for this house, and so I tell you.

The Hotel de Perou stands in the Rue de la Hachette, not twenty steps from the Place de Petit Pont and no more cruelly sarcastic title could ever have been con ferred on a building. The extreme shabbiness of the exterior of the house, the narrow, muddy street in which it stood, the dingy windows covered with mud, and repaired with every variety of patch, - all seemed to cry out to the passers by: This is the chosen abode of misery and destitution. . .

'Caught in the Net' is one of Gaboriau's novels of crime and mystery.
Émile Gaboriau was born in the small town of Saujon, Charente-Maritime, France. During his twenties, he became a secretary to Paul Feval - a an author now regarded as one of the fathers of modern crime fiction, whose Jean Diable (1862) is seen as the world's first modern detective novel.