14 h 10 minAudiobook18 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
In Orcival, a violent crime breaks the calm—and respectability offers no simple guide to the truth.
Orcival seems far from the dangers of Paris. Its country houses and local officials suggest a settled world where everyone knows everyone else. Then a violent crime at a country estate unsettles that confidence. In Émile Gaboriau’s The Mystery of Orcival, the investigation begins with urgent questions about the scene and who has entered the house.
Monsieur Lecoq refuses to accept apparent certainties without testing them. He weighs the stories people tell against the traces they leave behind. Beside him, Monsieur Plantat, a quietly intelligent local magistrate, connects evidence with his knowledge of Orcival. What lies beneath this respectable community matters as much as what first meets the investigator’s eye.
What you’ll discover
- Evidence worth a second look Follow Lecoq as he tests what seems obvious rather than trusting the first explanation.
- A magistrate who knows Orcival Meet Plantat, whose quiet manner conceals sharp intelligence and valuable knowledge of local people.
- Respectability under strain Look beneath country-house calm, where private wrongdoing shadows the community’s settled appearance.
- Stories against traces Watch the investigation measure what people say against the evidence they leave behind.
- Room for the history Discover a mystery that gives its people’s histories room beyond the sequence of clues.
Who will love it
Readers who love clue-by-clue puzzles, clever detectives with disguises and quirks, and village portraits with a wry smile, and anyone curious how the modern detective story first learned its tricks.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Two poachers find a body at dawn
- The château shows a staged struggle
- A rigid magistrate and a ruined gardener
- Lecoq arrives and a clock tells the truth
- A doctor's finding and a father's grief
- A night of confessions at the old man's house
- What the story says about friendship and envy
- How a detective reads a crime scene
- How the novel is built and told
Who’s who
- LecoqA Sûreté detective who hides behind disguises and a candy box, he reads crime scenes like open books and wants to solve a worthy riddle.
- Père PlantatThe elderly justice of the peace of Orcival, a gardener who claims to care for nothing, quietly guards a painful secret and a deep affection.
- Antoine DominiThe examining magistrate of Corbeil, serious and stubborn, who trusts material facts and wants justice done by the book.
- Dr. GendronA blunt, independent doctor who studies poisons in his laboratory and will state only what science can prove.
- Monsieur CourtoisThe wealthy, vain mayor of Orcival, who loves his sash and his speeches and dreams of a grand marriage for his daughter.
- GuespinThe count's gardener, a former gambler with a bad record, who is found with money he cannot explain and will not say where he spent the night.
- La RipailleAn old poacher of Orcival, sly and unashamed, who hints that he knows secrets about respectable people and wants to stay out of prison.
- RobelotThe village bonesetter and herbalist, once an assistant to the doctor, who has grown suddenly prosperous and fears questions about the past.
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- Audiobook
- 14 h 10 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 18 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
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The Mystery of Orcival
by Émile Gaboriau · 1867
A poacher's find in a riverside park draws an old magistrate and a master detective into a case of lies and secrets.
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In short
The Mystery of Orcival is a detective novel by Émile Gaboriau, a French writer who died in 1873. It is set in the 1860s in a pretty village on the Seine, a short ride from Paris.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Two poachers find a body at dawn
On a July morning in the 1860s, Jean Bertaud, called La Ripaille, and his son Philippe walk down to their boat on the Seine. Both are known in Orcival for poaching and petty theft. Philippe crosses the ditch into the park of Valfeuillu, the estate of Count de Trémorel, to cut a piece of willow and mend a broken oarlock. Among the reeds and irises he sees a woman's body, her gray silk dress stained with mud and blood. His father says she looks like the countess.
La Ripaille wants to walk away at once. Two men with their reputation will surely be blamed, he says, and he warns his son never to touch a murdered body. Philippe is the more honest of the two and insists that they must report what they have seen. They settle on a small lie, that they spotted the body from their boat as they passed. That lie will matter a great deal later.
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What is The Mystery of Orcival about?
It follows the murder of a countess at a country house near Paris. A magistrate, a justice of the peace, a doctor and a Paris detective named Lecoq study the clues and find that the crime has deep roots in the past.
Who is Lecoq in The Mystery of Orcival?
Lecoq is a detective from the Paris Sûreté who changes his looks at will. He plays a harmless retired shopkeeper, carries a candy box with a portrait, and solves cases by reasoning from small physical clues.
Who wrote The Mystery of Orcival and when is it set?
Émile Gaboriau, a French author who died in 1873, wrote it. The story is a work of fiction set in the 1860s in the village of Orcival on the Seine, not a true case.
The author
Émile Gaboriau
1832–1873 · French detective novelist
Émile Gaboriau (1832–1873) was a French writer born in Saujon, France. He later lived in Paris, where he died. He wrote novels and stories, including detective fiction featuring Monsieur Lecoq. The Lerouge Case appeared in 1866, followed by The Mystery of Orcival in 1867 and Monsieur Lecoq in 1868.
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