Book 1

First installment in a series about an endearingly clumsy young private eye, who scoots around Paris on his motorbike, more Will Ferrell than Humphrey Bogart. Translated into English for the first time!

Wearing an old trenchcoat and his indispensable felt hat, the 20-year-old Jérôme tries to look the part of a seasoned sleuth. By day he translates detective novels and fantasizes about being one. By night he’s enrolled in Professor Maison’s correspondence course for would-be private eyes. His girlfriend, Babette, is a flight attendant who brings him recordings for his collection of police sirens from around the world. It's a happy—if not particularly promising—existence, until his first “case."

In the past two months, fifteen people in Paris have been killed by poisoned darts. All the witnesses saw was a feathered shadow and a blowgun. The job of capturing the flamboyant assassin is entrusted to Jérôme by Professor Maison. Things get off to a rocky start, however, when the professor appears to be victim number sixteen!

Book 2

The youthful private-eye-in-training returns. This time he's off to the French countryside, eager to solve his first real case. Unfortunately, he's more Clouseau than Spade.

Jerome gets his first true case when he receives an emergency summons from the Baron de Verville, who claims his life is in danger. When Jerome arrives at the Baron's villa, however, his client is nowhere to be found, and the young detective is told to return home. As if that weren't suspicious enough, his doubts grow when he meets the villa's other occupants, which include the Baron's two adult children, who don't seem the least concerned about their father's disappearance. The gothic architecture, secret passages, hidden closets, and suspicious characters are the perfect ingredients for murder. It's like something out of a board game, and Jerome K. Jerome Bloche is right in the middle of it.

Presented for the first time in English.