This early work by Émile Gaboriau was originally published in the late
19th century and we are now republishing it with a brand new
introduction. 'The Champdoce Mystery' is one of Gaboriau's novels of
crime and mystery. Émile Gaboriau was born in the small town of Saujon,
Charente-Maritime, France. During his twenties, he became a secretary to
Paul Féval - a an author now regarded as one of the fathers of modern
crime fiction, whose Jean Diable (1862) is seen as the world's first
modern detective novel.