7 h 10 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 7 h 10 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens when a gentleman burglar turns his daring mind to mysteries that leave everyone else baffled?
In Maurice Leblanc’s The Eight Strokes of the Clock, Arsène Lupin takes the name Prince Rénine and turns from theft to detection. Hortense Daniel, a young woman who becomes his friend and companion, joins him as he faces one strange case after another. Danger, deception, and a touch of romance give these puzzles more than clever answers.
The collection brings together eight separate cases, each moving from a puzzling event toward an explanation. Rénine meets crimes and mysteries that defeat other people’s reasoning. Read the tales in order to follow his growing friendship with Hortense, or enjoy the satisfaction of a self-contained puzzle. The prose stays clear and quick, while fear and feeling keep the mysteries from becoming cold exercises.
What you’ll discover
- Lupin turns detective Meet the gentleman burglar in a different role, solving crimes rather than chiefly committing them.
- Eight separate puzzles Follow each strange event toward a clever explanation, with surprising answers along the way.
- A companion in danger Get to know Hortense Daniel as she shares Rénine’s cases and becomes his friend.
- Romance amid the mystery Discover tales where danger and fear sit beside warmth, feeling, and a touch of romance.
- Quick reasoning and charm Enjoy clear, lively storytelling that gives ingenious detection room without demanding one long plot.
Who will love it
You will love this if you enjoy clever detectives, puzzles solved by sharp reasoning, and a romance that grows with each case. It suits fans of Sherlock Holmes and of witty French adventure.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A silent clock starts a bargain of adventures
- A confident bluff can save a condemned man
- Two mothers, two names, and one trapped son
- A movie villain may be a real danger
- A man dies inside a locked beach cabin
- A hidden pattern links the hatchet murders
- Evidence that fits too neatly deserves doubt
- A strange letter sends Hortense to The Mercury
- Adventure, mercy and love bind the eight tales
Who’s who
- Prince Serge RénineA charming, quick-witted adventurer who reads people like books and offers Hortense a run of cases and a bold bargain.
- Hortense DanielA bored, spirited young woman who joins Rénine's adventures, wants her mother's lost clasp back, and doubts where the bargain leads.
- Geneviève AymardHortense's friend, who must marry a man she hates unless she can find her missing fiancé in time.
- Jean LouisA gentle young man from Brittany, raised between two women who each claim him as a son.
- Rose AndréeA bright film actress whose screen adventure seems to follow her into real life.
- Thérèse d'OrmevalA mother of two girls who holds a painful secret at Étretat and wants to shield her children.
- Jérôme VignalA rich, bold young man who loves Natalie de Gorne and finds the snow turned against him.
- PancaldiA pale antique dealer in Paris who trusts a lucky charm and defends it with a great act.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 7 h 10 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 8 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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The Eight Strokes of the Clock
by Maurice Leblanc · 1923
A clock silent for twenty years starts to strike, and Hortense Daniel joins Prince Rénine on eight adventures.
Easy read5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
What if a clock that has been silent for twenty years suddenly starts to strike in an empty château? In The Eight Strokes of the Clock, Maurice Leblanc sends Hortense Daniel and the clever Prince Rénine into eight linked mysteries, each one a puzzle of deception and nerve.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A silent clock starts a bargain of adventures
The first tale opens at the Château de la Marèze, on the first day of the hunt. Hortense Daniel, bored and tied to a cold family, plans to run away with the dull Rossigny. Prince Rénine, a guest nobody knows, spoils the escape by shooting out the tires of the car, then asks her to spend the day with him.
He leads her to the shuttered Domaine de Halingre, closed for twenty years. Inside, a grandfather clock begins to tick and strikes eight. A hidden telescope and a calendar stuck on September 5 draw Rénine deeper into the mystery. He heads to the roof to find the telescope's purpose, then uncovers a plugged hole through which he sees something dreadful across the valley.
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What is The Eight Strokes of the Clock about?
It follows Prince Rénine and Hortense Daniel through eight linked mysteries, from a skeleton seen through a telescope to a lucky clasp in an antique shop. Each case is a puzzle, bound together by a bargain that ends when a clock strikes eight.
Is Prince Rénine really Arsène Lupin?
The author's note says that Lupin told these adventures as if they had happened to a friend, Prince Rénine, and that the two seem to be one person. Leblanc leaves the reader to decide, and a chapter opening repeats the hint.
Is The Eight Strokes of the Clock a novel or short stories?
It is a collection of eight chapters, each a self-contained mystery, joined by the same two main characters and the deal they make in the first chapter. You can enjoy each case on its own while following the larger story.
The author
Maurice Leblanc
1864–1941 · French mystery novelist
Maurice Leblanc was a French writer born in Rouen in 1864. He wrote novels and short stories, including the Arsène Lupin series, which began in 1905. His books include The Hollow Needle, published in 1909, and The Crystal Stopper, published in 1912. He died in Perpignan in 1941.
More by Maurice Leblanc
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