Maman Léo

This is a Boundary Bay Classics edition of the classic novel Maman Léo by Paul Féval. The fifth volume of Féval’s eight-part Les Habits Noirs cycle, it continues the saga of a mysterious criminal secret society in nineteenth-century Paris. Following the mysterious death of examining magistrate Remy d’Arx, a former circus animal-tamer known as “maman Léo” becomes entangled in the fate of young Valentine and a sprawling conspiracy built around an inheritance and a family secret. First serialized in 1869, the novel blends detective intrigue with the popular melodrama of the French roman-feuilleton, and remains part of a cycle that helped establish Féval as one of the founding figures of French crime fiction.