The Secret of the Night

The Secret of the Night (French original Le Secret de la nuit; also translated as The Secret of the Night) is a detective novel by the French writer Gaston Leroux, published in 1913. It is the third full-length novel in his series featuring the journalist-detective Joseph Rouletabille, following The Mystery of the Yellow Room and The Perfume of the Lady in Black. The story is set in Russia in 1905: radical revolutionaries have already made three failed attempts on the life of General Trebassof, yet they vow to kill him still. Tsar Nicholas II therefore summons the young French journalist Rouletabille, already famous throughout Europe, to protect the general as a detective. Rouletabille moves into the general's country villa on the Neva, bringing with him his assistant, a fellow journalist, and Koupriane of the police department, and peels back layer by layer everyone in the household: the general's adopted daughter Natasha, the crowds of relatives and hangers-on, the worldly servants, and the revolutionaries who operate as "living bombs." When the clues point to those closest to the general, the seemingly clear direction is overturned again and again. With tight suspense, vivid group portraits steeped in Russian social atmosphere, and the young detective's almost stubborn logical deduction, Leroux makes this the most politically conspiratorial novel in the Rouletabille series. It is both a classic "whodunit" puzzle and a portrait of Russia on the eve of revolution.