Yet, amongst the inhabitants of the novel, he is as famous and awe-inspiring as Fantômas, the pursued. As the pursuer, he is dedicated and relentless, but bland. On the subject of sleuthing, I ought to take a few moments to reflect upon Inspector Juve and a few moments is all I will need. Likewise, the action is often laboured, with many pages devoted to interminable, often repetitive, or unnecessary, exposition, rather than cunning feats of criminality or even creative sleuthing. The pace is, for example, rather slow, certainly in pulp terms, although it does pick up in the second half. However, the opposite is actually the case. And I was fine with that it was all I felt I could handle at this time. For these reasons, I came to the book expecting something fast-paced, exciting and essentially mindless. Moreover, the iconic cover, which features a giant masked man holding a bloody knife and walking over Paris, appears to promise sinister delights. When Fantômas – which is, I believe, considered to be one of the first pulp novels – was released in 1911 it is said to have caused a sensation amongst the general public in France. “Fantômas! The sound of that name evoked the worst horrors! Fantômas! This terrorist, this über-criminal who has never shrunk from any cruelty, any horror – Fantômas is evil personified! Fantômas! He stops at nothing!” A force, certainly inexplicable, unseeable, unknowable, but felt. Whose hand? God’s? No, with my ego having been brought to heel by these catastrophes, I can no longer believe that there is anything in my wretched case that would interest a deity. Yet, as the disasters have shown no sign of abating, have in fact increased in frequency and seriousness, I am at the point of seeing a sinister hand in this, a plan, a vendetta.

In a world where anything is possible, where an infinite number of things can happen at any time and in any sequence, a run of bad luck, especially for someone with such poor judgement, was unwelcome, of course, but did not strike me as unduly worrying or significant. I didn’t initially suspect anything untoward an unfortunate series of events, is what I called it.

Souvestre fantomas