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What it tells you
Detective Youssef Guédira has papered a wall with Maurice Leblanc covers, from the Je sais tout magazine where Lupin debuted in 1905 to the gentleman thief squaring off with a lightly renamed Sherlock. In this episode he spots that Paul Sernine and Luis Perenna are both anagrams of Arsène Lupin, and his lieutenant tells him to focus on the case. Every other cop in the building is working the robbery. Guédira is the only one doing the assigned reading, which is why he is the only one on the right track.
Guédira brings his homework to the station. The French paperback in his hand is Les Dents du tigre, the novel where Lupin spends the whole book as Don Luis Perenna, the same alias he's busy unscrambling. Leblanc's novel came out in English in 1914, and French readers had to wait until Le Journal serialized it in 1920, so Americans met this version of the Paris thief before Paris did. The rest of the squad is reading the case file. Guédira is reading the guy who wrote it a century early.
Season 1, Episode 2, "Chapter 2" · Assane Diop · Prison cells, intercut with Raoul at home
Three generations of Lupin readers: The Confessions of Arsène Lupin
The episode cuts between three generations of the same family and two Leblanc books. Assane pulls The Confessions of Arsène Lupin off Étienne Comet's shelf and reads it in his own cell, while the edit jumps back to Babakar marking the same paperback with coffee and a cotton swab until the stained words spell out I am innocent, trapped by Anne Pellegrini. Meanwhile Raoul ignores his dinner for Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Thief, the book Babakar gave Assane and Assane gave him. Babakar was the one who corrected his son's spelling, so the misspellings in his old letter were deliberate, and they're what sent Assane to Comet. His last message is written entirely in Maurice Leblanc's words, which is one way to make sure nobody edits it.
The 1907 collection that started it all, and the book Assane's father gives him for his birthday. After the show premiered it went to number one on France's children's book chart, which makes it a 114-year-old rookie of the year.
Leblanc borrowed Sherlock Holmes for an earlier story, Arthur Conan Doyle objected, and the detective came back as Herlock Sholmès. Cheapest rebrand in publishing history. Nobody was fooled, and nobody was supposed to be.
Lupin's hideout is a hollow rock needle at Étretat on the Normandy coast, a real cliff formation you can visit. The show heads to Étretat for its Part 1 finale, so this cover is basically a spoiler pinned at eye level.
Lupin spends this one as Prince Paul Sernine, the first of the two names Guédira unscrambles in this episode. The novel later got split into two volumes, and the second half, Les Trois Crimes d'Arsène Lupin, hangs on this wall too. Same book, two covers. That's commitment to the bit.
The cover on the wall is the same book Assane digs out of Étienne Comet's things in prison this episode, with Babakar's message hidden in its pages. Guédira has the poster. Assane has the copy that matters.
Lupin goes undercover as the Spanish nobleman Don Luis Perenna, the second alias Guédira flags. Scramble the letters and you get Arsène Lupin, which tells you Leblanc's idea of a disguise was a fake mustache and a Scrabble rack.
The 1995 birthday pick: Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Cambrioleur