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Louis Joseph Vance

The origin story of the Lone Wolf, master criminal with a conscience

One rainy winter night, an orphan is abandoned to the care of a shabby Parisian inn called Troyon’s. For the next eleven years, the boy is up before dawn to clean and fetch and serve, his only respite the closet to which he retires at night and the books he pilfers from the hotel’s guests. A few francs here and there also find their way into his pockets, but not so much that anyone would notice—anyone, that is, except Bourke, the cultivated Irish thief who regularly hides out at Troyon’s. Caught red-handed, the amateur outwits the professional. Turn me over to the innkeepers, he says, and I’ll go to the police with everything I know about you. Astonished, Bourke takes the boy under his wing and teaches him how to be a master criminal. The most important lesson? Be friendless.

Years later, Michael Lanyard—known to the authorities only as the Lone Wolf—is the world’s greatest jewel thief. When a ruthless gang of outlaws threatens to expose him unless he joins their “pack, ” Lanyard vows to give up crime rather than violate Bourke’s code. Only a beautiful American girl and a sinister German spy stand in his way.

Louis Joseph Vance’s groundbreaking series introduced a new turn of phrase to the language and gave American literature one of its most iconic characters.

This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

MysteriousPress.com/Open Road

Lone Wolf

The Lone Wolf

The second instalment in the thrilling adventures of the Lone Wolf 

A muddy figure inches his way across no man’s land, the only living thing in a hellscape of death and misery. Artillery lights up the night sky and he pauses—as stiff and motionless as the corpses that block his path. Darkness returns, and he sprints to safety, tumbling down a ladder into the British trenches. He is no ordinary soldier returned from a night time mission. He is the Lone Wolf, master jewel thief, and he has been hunting his prey for years.

When last we saw Michael Lanyard, he had turned his back on crime and was ready to start life anew, the beautiful Lucy Shannon at his side. But the reputation of a world-class thief always precedes him, and Lanyard’s young family has been denied a home in America, England, and France. In Belgium, they thought they had found peace—until the invading German army brought a ruthless villain to their door.

Alone again, Lanyard dedicates himself to vengeance, tracking his archnemesis across every battlefield in Europe. Herr Ekstrom is bound for New York, and the Lone Wolf will brave torpedoes, secret agents, and impressionable young women to exact his righteous revenge.

This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

The False Faces

On the brink of retirement, the Lone Wolf risks everything for love

Nearly forty years old, the Lone Wolf is, as his British Secret Service friend Wertheimer puts it, “superannuated.” His last adventure involved not just the surprise of meeting his grown daughter, but the twin shocks of seeing her fall in love with a secret agent and risk her own death at the hands of murderous Bolsheviks. The excitement has left Lanyard—or Monsieur Duchemin, as the British government prefers to know him—feeling slow and cranky. There is nothing to do, suggests Wertheimer, but retire from undercover work and leave England for good. Wertheimer more than suggests this, in fact; he demands it—for the Russians have made it known that they intend to kill the Lone Wolf and will tear apart London and every other corner of the British Isles to find him.

Inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, Lanyard heads to the South of France. Hiking alone in the mountains, he goes to bed with the birds, rises with the sun, and considers what to do with the rest of his life. Visions of a dusty Parisian antique shop and Sunday afternoons with his grandchildren delight the Lone Wolf, but fate has something altogether different in store. In the eerie rock field of Montpellier-le-Vieux, he rescues a beautiful woman and her traveling party from highway bandits. Then the real danger begins.

This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

Alias the Lone Wolf

For the sake of a Russian princess, the Lone Wolf makes an enemy for life—and discovers a love he never expected 

While taking in an auction, the dashing jewel thief Michael Lanyard spies something more appealing than the artwork on the dock: the stunning Princess Sofia. There to purchase an impressionist painting, the ravishing Russian émigré becomes locked in a bidding war with her diabolical ex-husband, who drives the price up so high that no one can afford to top him—except for Lanyard. When he takes the painting home, the Lone Wolf discovers that he has spent 20,000 guineas on a forgery—and regrets it not one bit. It is his excuse to meet the princess.

Sofia’s ex-husband is blackmailing her, threatening to tell the world the humiliating truth of their separation, and only Lanyard can save her. But rescuing the beautiful princess makes an enemy of her husband, who years later seeks his revenge—by targeting a woman the Lone Wolf has never met, but who holds the keys to his heart.

This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.