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Portrait image of Gaston Leroux

Sample of authors

Leroux, Gaston

Gaston Leroux was born in Paris but grew up in a little village in Normandy close to the home of his maternal grandparents. As a child he was interested in swimming, sailing and deep-sea fishing, but he also developed an interest in literature at an early age. He particularly appreciated Alexandre Dumas père and Victor Hugo, and he wrote imitations of their works during his school years. After ...

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Literary figures

Max Van Larsen

Gender: Male

A depressed, middle-aged detective with a guilty conscience who works in the New York police section for missing persons. Max Van Larsen’s wife and 13-year-old son have died in a traffic accident, and he discovers that he has not known them well enough to be able to mourn them. He is, however, consoled when he meets the cheerful author Sylvia Plotkin, and together they solve the weird cases in t...

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