The Hollow Needle: Further Adventures of Arsène Lupin (Arsène Lupin, #3) in Around the World in 80 Books

Apr 29, 2014 Bogdan rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: french-lit

A pretty naive novel, very much focused on sensational not on credibility. It is definitively a recipe for any modern commercial success. And when there are also famous detectives involved, it is hard to miss it.

These kind of novels usually don't have an elaborate premise. It is consisting of the usual good versus evil fight, but for this one, Maurice Leblanc wanted to create a crime/detective novel without a negative character. He tried hard to make the villain look like just an adventurer that A pretty naive novel, very much focused on sensational not on credibility. It is definitively a recipe for any modern commercial success. And when there are also famous detectives involved, it is hard to miss it.

These kind of novels usually don't have an elaborate premise. It is consisting of the usual good versus evil fight, but for this one, Maurice Leblanc wanted to create a crime/detective novel without a negative character. He tried hard to make the villain look like just an adventurer that did not do any important infraction. But it ended it somewhere in between and this is why I will give it a 1.

The form is another element from the genre that don't require too much skill. It needs to be simple so that it allows the reader to follow the story and the clues. There are couple of misses, as the story seems to turn unexpectedly in another direction, but in general it is fairly fine. This is why I will give it a 2 for form.

In terms of originality, there is pretty impossible to write original crime novels. I will give it a 2 for the level of originality of this book, just because this is my first Arsene Lupin novel.

The characters are again something not too important for this genre. Authors are not required to create very complex characters the evolve over time. It is obvious that Arsene Lupin and the young Isidore are the most worked characters, so I will rate it with a 3.

Regarding the complexity and difficulty, usually the mystery/crime/detective novels have at least a complex problem solving exercise at their core. For this one, even this problem solving seems too forced. The detective guesses the right think from the first try almost without any clear clue, so I will rate it with a 2 for complexity and difficulty.

In terms of credibility, this is a novel that lacks it altogether. Most of the mystery solving and actions made by the villain seem extremely off the radar of what I consider credible. My rating for credibility is therefore 1.

The last criteria is edition. This ebook had little issues as I noticed only few proof reading misses. Due to this, I will rate it with a 4.

To summarize, I wished I would have liked this novel more, but in the end it failed in some important aspects. Credibility is for me the most important in this genre. All in all, my final rating for this novel is 2.14, which I will round it to a 2 on Goodreads system.


+--------------------------+-----------------+
| Criteria | Rating |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Premise | 1 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Form | 2 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Originality | 2 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Characters | 3 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Difficulty/Complexity | 2 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Credibility | 1 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Edition | 4 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Total | 2.14 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+