The Mystery of the Yellow Room

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Before Poirot, There Was Rouletabille

In his classic “locked room” mystery, The Hollow Man, author John Dickson Carr broke the fourth wall long enough to tell readers he thought the best detective novel ever written was Gaston Leroux’s The Mystery of the Yellow Room.  If you take into account that Leroux’s book was published in 1908—twelve years before Agatha Christie’s first novel—Carr may well have been right. 

The Mystery of the Yellow Room introduces Leroux’s chief protagonist, Joseph Rouletabille, a French journalist with a reputation for solving France’s most baffling mysteries.  He has a sidekick who usually doesn’t grasp the clues, and serves as a foil to whom Rouletabille must provide the explanations.  Leroux also acquaints us with Ballmeyer, a master criminal who evolves into Rouletabille’s nemesis.

The narrative mixes characters’ discussions and musings about the case with action scenes—sometimes suspenseful.  Leroux maintains a sharp pace to avoid the tedium of too much conversation.

My edition of the book—downloaded from Project Gutenberg—is an English translation from Leroux’s French-language novel.  It’s particularly well-done.  The prose is never stilted nor awkward in its vocabulary or phrasing, and reads like original English. 

Leroux is better known for his standalone novel The Phantom of the Opera.  But this one launches a series of novels featuring Rouletabille.  And while Leroux provided a complete and satisfying conclusion, he also left a massive cliffhanger that will have you reaching for the second in the series following The Mystery of the Yellow Room.

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