Victor Legris Mystery Books In Order

Publication Order of Victor Legris Mystery Books

The Victor Legris Mystery series is a well-known series of mystery, historical fiction, and crime novels. It is written by a sister pair of French authors named Laurence Lefevre and Liliane Korb under the common pseudonym of Claude Izner. The series is comprised of a total of 12 books released between 2003 and 2014. Claude Izner has set the books’ plots during the 19th century in Paris, France. Some of the sequences of the stories take place in other cities of France as well. Each and every novel of this series features the lead protagonist in the role of Victor Legris. Victor is depicted as working as a bookseller in Paris. He gets involved in numerous murder mysteries and investigates them separately to find the real culprits. Victor Legris assists the police authorities in solving the murder mysteries and helping to provide justice to the innocent victims.

Bookselling is the job that Victor Legris carries out during the daytime. Being an amateur detective excites him very much. He enjoys chasing criminals and working out the evidence and clues with the help of his detective skills to solve murder mysteries. Some of the essential characters mentioned in the novels by Claude Izner in addition to Victor Legris include Denise le Louran, Odette de Valois, Jojo, Toulouse-Lautrec, Louis Fontane, Kenji Mori, Joseph Pignot, Alphonse Ballu, Ichiro Watanabe, etc. The series’ events begin in 1889 and run up to 1900, depicting various mysteries that Victor gets involved in year after year. Victor Legris is assisted by Jojo in doing the sleuthing, whom he hires as his permanent assistant as the series proceeds further. Claude Izner originally wrote the books of this series in French, which were later translated into other foreign languages and sold in different parts of the works. This award-winning series has sold over a million printed copies of its books all over the world. The series’ success helped Claude Izner in gaining the reputation as a prominent writer of historical mystery stories. Every book of the series is highly praised by the readers as well as the critics. They are loved by the fans of mystery books because of their unique set up, wonderful characters, and intriguing stories.

Claude Izner is the combined pen name of the sister writers Liliane Korb and Laurence Korb, who later became Laurence Lefevre after her marriage. Both the sisters hail from Paris, France. Liliane was born in 1940, while Laurence is 11 years younger than her. Prior to the collaboration of the sisters, Liliane used to work in the field of film editing. Laurence started her career as an author. She had written and published a couple of novels during the late 1970s. Laurence also owned a bookstall near the docks of Seine. Liliane had moved out of Seine in 2004 for her film editing work. She returned to focus on her writing career and eventually teamed up with her sister to write historical mysteries.

Together, the sisters have made several audiovisual shows and short films. They have been working as authors, both individually and together, for many years. Their novels are suited for the adults as well as the younger readers. The Victor Legris stories written by them have been translated and sold in as many as 8 countries of the world. Liliane and Laurence have come together again to write a new crime series. This new series is set around the Great War in Paris. Le pas du Renard is the first title of the new series written in French. They have again used the pseudonym of Claude Izner for writing the new crime fiction series. Laurence and Liliane Korb have won numerous awards for their work and have appeared in the list of bestselling authors on many occasions. They hope to keep entertaining their fans with interesting stories in the future and enjoy success in their writing careers for many more years.

A very popular book of the Victor Legris series written by Claude Izner is entitled ‘Strangled in Paris’. It was released in 2014 by the Minotaur Books, after its first release in 2006. The book is set in Normandy and Paris at the time of the year 1894. Initially, it is mentioned that an anonymous man rescues a mysterious young lady from a shipwreck near the Normandy coast. After a few months, a well-dressed lady wearing a velvet mask is discovered dead in the La Villette district of Paris. A drunk watchman had witnessed the brutal strangulation of the woman at the hands of the killer, but he was too afraid to tell anything. The watchman finds a pendant near the corpse that has a black pendant.

After the identity of the victim is established as Louise Fontane, Victor Legris is asked to take up the investigation and unravel the mystery behind the woman’s murder. As Victor has been recently married, he seems reluctant to take the case initially, but agrees after some time. Victor studies about Louise Fontane and becomes baffled to know that she hailed from a poor background. He wonders how come Louise managed to own costly clothes and what was the black unicorn’s significance in her murder. After investigating a bit more, Victor finds that the unicorn signifies the Black Unicorn Society. This society’s members try to discover the philosopher’s stone.

Shortly after, two men are murdered just like Louise Fontane. The apartments of both the men are ransacked and defaced. When Victor learns that the men also belonged to the society, he joins his brother-in-law and assistant Jojo to find the connection between the three murders. Their sleuthing is affected by their frowning wives, who don’t appreciate their husbands’ growing interest in solving mysteries. Finally, Jojo and Victor succeed in unraveling a sex racket in which young girls from poor backgrounds are preyed upon by ruthless men. This unraveling also leads them to the murderer, who is caught and made to undergo a trial in court for his brutal crimes.

Another mind-blowing book of this series is called ‘Rendezvous Passage d’Enter’. It was published in 2008. The story of this novel takes place in Paris’ Montmorency Forest in 1985. When a meteorite falls in the forest, the routine lives of Kenji Mori, Joseph Pignot, and Victor Legris are disrupted. The event is followed by several bizarre occurrences and a series of murders in mysterious situations. Once again, Victor Legris sets himself in the pursuit of ruthless killers and some greedy men, who try to track down a hidden treasure. The investigation takes Victor & Jojo to different locations in France.