Summary
Summary of The Golden Triangle
The Golden Triangle at a glance
Summary: 8 min to read
- Reading time
- About 5 h 50 min4 h 35 min fast, 6 h 55 min slow
- Length
- 82,800 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1918by Maurice Leblanc
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
Free for 3 months
Get the full summary of The Golden Triangle, free
- 200,000+ classics as eBooks, audiobooks and 15-minute summaries, and print and large print at cost
- Up to 5 readers in your home on one plan
Key ideas
Key idea 1
A rescue leaves the enemy unknown
Captain Patrice Belval overhears a plan to abduct the nurse known as Little Mother Coralie. Rather than warn her, he gathers seven wounded former patients and places them around the square where the attack will happen. When the kidnappers seize her, the soldiers rush out with sticks and crutches.
The rescue succeeds, but certainty stops there. Coralie begs Belval not to call the police, and the captured attacker dies by strangling while they talk. Protecting her has brought Belval into a danger he cannot yet explain.
Key idea 2
A broken bead joins their pasts
Belval tells Coralie that he loves her and insists that his missing leg takes nothing from his heart or mind.
Start free to read
Key idea 3
The key opens a dangerous secret
Following sparks and a closed car, Belval and Ya-Bon reach a house that looks like a fortress.
Start free to read
Key idea 4
Coralie chooses resistance over revenge
After the gang leaves, Coralie approaches her bound husband with the colonel's dagger.
Start free to read
Key idea 5
Hidden gold conceals a buried past
Masseron explains that agents for a foreign power bought French gold before the war.
Start free to read
Key idea 6
An old crime becomes a trap
Belval learns that his father, Armand, loved Coralie's mother and survived the earlier murder attempt.
Start free to read
Key idea 7
Lupin brings help and fresh doubt
Belval wakes outside the lodge to find a smiling stranger reading Benjamin Franklin's memoirs.
Start free to read
Key idea 8
Wounds do not diminish human worth
Belval refuses to hide the wound he received in the field.
Start free to read
Key idea 9
Repeated objects make certainty look suspicious
Leblanc builds the mystery through pairs: the broken bead, repeated names, doors opened by one key, and a crime echoed by another trap.
Start free to read
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
Read the rest free
Who it’s for
Readers who love fast plots, secret hoards and old family mysteries will enjoy this one. It suits anyone who likes wartime Paris, gentleman rogues and chapters that end on a cliff edge.
What this book is
It is the evening of April 3, 1915, and seven crippled soldiers stand motionless behind trees in a quiet Paris square. They wait for a nurse in a blue cloak, and for the men who mean to seize her. Why would a squad of wounded veterans guard one woman?
The Golden Triangle is an adventure novel by Maurice Leblanc, the French writer who created Arsène Lupin. It is set in the first spring of the First World War. You get a one-legged captain, a gentle nurse called Little Mother Coralie, a rusty key that fits a lock it has no right to fit, and a rumor of gold worth three hundred million francs.
In this summary
- 1A rescue leaves the enemy unknownFree
- 2A broken bead joins their pasts
- 3The key opens a dangerous secret
- 4Coralie chooses resistance over revenge
- 5Hidden gold conceals a buried past
- 6An old crime becomes a trap
- 7Lupin brings help and fresh doubt
- 8Wounds do not diminish human worth
- 9Repeated objects make certainty look suspicious
A band of wounded soldiers saves a nurse
Captain Patrice Belval has a wooden leg and a bandaged head. One morning he overhears two foreigners in a restaurant. They plan to seize a woman who leaves a hospital at seven each evening. Belval guesses they mean the nurse the patients call Little Mother Coralie.
Rather than warn her, he gathers seven of her former patients, men with missing limbs and other wounds. They take their places behind trees and a kiosk in the square.
When two men leap from a taxi and grab Coralie, the soldiers spring from the shadows with sticks and crutches. The attackers flee, and the one-armed soldier Ya-Bon brings one back by the neck. Coralie begs Belval not to call the police. While they talk, the captured man dies in the hall, strangled.
Takeaway: Winning the first fight does not tell you who the enemy is.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Take this summary with you
Send to Kindle downloads the file and opens Amazon's page: drop the file there.
Check yourself
What reveals a connection between Belval and Coralie beyond their present meeting?
Right. “He joins the two pieces, and the broken edges lock together exactly.”Not quite. “He joins the two pieces, and the broken edges lock together exactly.”
Why do Belval and Coralie go to the lodge garden?
Right. “They go, drawn by the wish to understand their parents' fate.”Not quite. “They go, drawn by the wish to understand their parents' fate.”
What does Belval believe wounded soldiers can still hope for?
Right. “Belval takes this as proof that the most damaged hero can still hope for love and work.”Not quite. “Belval takes this as proof that the most damaged hero can still hope for love and work.”
Go deeper: the whole of The Golden Triangle
About 6 h to read.Start freePaperback, hardcover and large print, printed for you at cost, are on their way.Email me when it is printed
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 82,800 words
- Reading timeAbout 5 h 50 min
Questions about The Golden Triangle
What is The Golden Triangle about?
It follows a wounded French captain who saves a nurse from kidnappers in 1915 Paris. Their lives are linked by a broken amethyst bead, a murder twenty years old, and a hoard of gold hidden somewhere near a house in Passy.
Is Arsène Lupin in The Golden Triangle?
Lupin joins the story midway, under the name Don Luis Perenna. He comes at the call of the captain's orderly Ya-Bon, solves clues quickly, and brings humor and cunning to the hunt for the gold.
What does the golden triangle mean?
It is a phrase found on a scrap of paper and on a wall in the old secretary's room. The characters spend much of the book guessing what it points to, and the answer is simpler than they expect.
Is The Golden Triangle a true story?
No, it is fiction by Maurice Leblanc. It is set in April 1915 in real Paris places, such as the Champs-Élysées and the Rue Raynouard in Passy, and the hunt for gold is invented.
Is The Golden Triangle easy to read?
Its chapters are short, its plot moves fast, and the dialogue is lively. The mix of danger, jokes and romance makes it easy to follow, even when the mystery thickens.
Cite this edition
Leblanc, Maurice. The Golden Triangle. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-golden-triangle.
Leblanc, M. (2026). The golden triangle. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-golden-triangle (Original work published 1918)
Leblanc, Maurice. The Golden Triangle. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-golden-triangle.
@book{leblanc2026golden,
author = {Leblanc, Maurice},
title = {The Golden Triangle},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-golden-triangle},
note = {First published 1918}
}
Free for 3 months
Get the full summary of The Golden Triangle, free
- 200,000+ classics as eBooks, audiobooks and 15-minute summaries, and print and large print at cost
- Up to 5 readers in your home on one plan
