The Lone Wolf Returns

1923. American screenwriter, short story writer and novelist. Vance's The Lone Wolf books feature Michael Lanyard as a charming sort of rogue, a European jewel thief with a soft spot for damsels in distress, trained in the criminal arts by the mysterious Irishman, Bourke. This is the fifth volume in his Lone Wolf stories. The book begins: I love you, said Michael Lanyard. He spoke in French; and that simple phrase, covered by the surging song of strings and woodwinds, was inaudible to other ears. Only the woman with him heard and, hearing, roused from the reverie into which she too insensibly had lapsed, turning back from the prismatic pageantry of the dance eyes whose grave regard gave never a clue to the emotions his words inspired