Used book – The Blancarde Enigma: The New Mysteries of Marseille, Jean Contrucci

Marseilles, 1891. The city is divided in two. On one side, on the northern bank of the Old Port, is the "reserved" district where the bourgeois come to sow their wild oats. On the other, the respectable suburbs, around Rue Paradis or the hamlet of La Blancarde... It is in this world, however, that the wealthy Mrs. Magnan is savagely murdered. Louis Coulon, her adopted son, is accused. Evidence and testimonies incriminate him. He is sentenced to life imprisonment in a penal colony. A conclusion that seems too simple to the Deputy Head of Security, Eugène Baruteau, and his young nephew, the intrepid journalist Raoul Signoret. Especially when the number one witness retracts his statement: "An innocent man is in the penal colony in my place!" This family duo of investigators, joined by Cécile, Raoul's fiancée, goes from surprise to surprise and discovers that the same man is the subject of three contradictory verdicts. Vice is not always hidden where you expect it... By recreating the atmosphere of Marseilles during the Belle Époque, Jean Contrucci, literary critic for La Provence, acts here as both historian and novelist of an astonishing affair that made headlines at the time.