Publisher's Synopsis
Mademoiselle Rouletabille Mary Eliska Girl Detective The Secret of the Night (c) 2021 TXu 2-295-430 by William A. Stricklin. The Secret of the Night originally Rouletabille chez le Tsar a 1913 mystery in the French language by Gaston Leroux currently in the public domain, has been re-written by in English as part of a series of girl detective mysteries solved by Mary Eliska Girl Detective. Rouletabille (roule ta bille, or "Roll your marble") is French slang for "Globetrotter" - one who has been around the world and seen it all, a cool-headed, unfazeable, nonchalant person. In The Mystery of the Yellow Room fictional Mademoiselle Rouletabille Mary Eliska Girl Detective investigated a complex and seemingly impossible crime - in which the criminal appears to disappear from a locked room! In this next book, The Secret of the Night Mademoiselle Rouletabille Mary Eliska Girl Detective is summoned to Russia by the Czar, to solve a murder at the Imperial Court. John Dickson Carr, the master of locked-room mystery, named The Mystery of the Yellow Room the "finest locked room tale ever written" in his 1935 novel The Hollow Man. Mary Eliska is employed by Nicholas II of Russia to watch over one of his Generals whose life has been threatened by revolutionaries. The Secret of the Night refers to "the white nights" when the sun sets for a while, but its light can be seen on the horizon. Just a few hours have no direct sunlight while the sun is shining brightly on the horizon, usually 3AM to 4AM. Mademoiselle Rouletabille Mary Eliska Girl Detective meets Ballmeyer, an international criminal of great repute and many identities (inspired by fictional Arsène Lupin). As Jean Roussel, Ballmeyer married a rich American heiress, Mathilde Stangerson, the Lady in Black of Leroux' second novel. Ballmeyer returns in The Perfume of the Lady in Black in a castle on the French Riviera. Rouletabille finds out her parents are Ballmeyer and Stangerson. You will enjoy this book.
