Death in SalisburyMaurice Leblanc (1864-1941) was a French novelist and short story writer. Born in Rouen, Leblanc moved to Paris, where he began his literary career, from about 1892 to 1904. He published about ten books.
Series
In 1904 Pierre Laffite, the director of Je sais Toutcommissioned him to write a story for his newly founded magazine. Soon after, he gave him an original entitled "The Arrest of Arsène Lupin". According to the author himself, this was the only Lupin story he had planned. However, the character made a strong impression on Pierre Laffite and encouraged Leblanc to develop the character. Thus was born from Leblanc's hand: Arséne Lupin, a white-collar thief. The novels about Lupin total almost 20 books. One could say that Arsène Lupin is a parallel hero to the English Sherlock Holmes.
Moving on to the series at hand, its protagonist is not the character imagined by Leblanc in 1905 but Assane Diop (played by Omar Sy), an admirer of Arsène Lupin. Assane is the only son of an immigrant from Senegal who had come to France to seek a better life. Assane's father is framed for the theft of an expensive diamond necklace by his employer, the rich and powerful Hubert Pellegrini. While in jail, he hangs himself in his cell out of shame, leaving the teenage Assane an orphan. Twenty-five years later, inspired by a book about the gentleman thief Arsène Lupin that his father had given him for his birthday, Assane, now a professional thief, sets out to take revenge on the Pellegrini family, using his charisma to expose Hubert's crimes.
The series has been released on Netflix on January 8, 2021. It consists of 10 episodes, divided into 2 parts. For now, only the first part, consisting of 5 episodes, has been released.
The series is easily appealing based on its good pace and can be considered within the thriller genre. Of course, it includes comic moments that are very characteristic of its lead actor.
Another of the series' merits lies in its setting and, in particular, in the iconic locations it uses: Louvre, Luxembourg Gardens, the Parisian banlieu of Montreuil, the emblematic Norman city of Étretat,...
Its strong point is not credibility (many loose ends and inconsistencies), but despite this it is entertaining if you are not very demanding. In short, an entertaining series, to spend a nice time without being rigorous.
