This early work by Émile Gaboriau was originally published in 1866 and
we are now republishing it with a brand new introduction. 'The Widow
Lerouge' 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.