The Lone Wolf

The Lone Wolf: A Melodrama, by Louis Joseph Vance, was first published in 1914 and was the first of what eventually became an 8-book series. The main character, Michael Lanyard, also known as The Lone Wolf, is a jewel thief who in later stories reforms and becomes a private detective. In this first book, we learn of his difficult past and his journey that led to this pre-war moment, when he gets entangled with both a Paris crime mob and a woman, confronts his present and future course, and then seeks ways to escape his life of crime.

The False Faces: Further Adventures from the History of the Lone Wolf, by Louis Joseph Vance, was first published in 1918, and is the second of what eventually became an 8-book series. The main character, known as The Lone Wolf, is a reformed jewel thief who in this story, is a British spy, who uses several names including Michael Lanyard.

Alias the Lone Wolf, published in 1921, is the third in the 8-book series about a reformed French jewel thief, Michael Lanyard--the Lone Wolf. This story is set in the years after the Great War (World War I), and Lanyard has ended his connection to the British Secret Service. He is enjoying some leisure time in the south of France near an area called the Cévennes. He's using the name Andre Duchemin, which he used in the previous story.