Part of a series honoring the late author and blogger Bill Crider .
The Lone Wolf , by Louis Joseph Vance (Dell, 1943). This was published as part of the now-famous Dell “mapbacks” series , with a cover painting by Gerald Gregg .
Published originally in 1914, this is the first of Vance’s eight novels starring Michael Lanyard, aka The Lone Wolf. As The Thrilling Detective Web Site recalls , Lanyard began as “an English-born orphan of unknown parentage who endured a horrid Dickensian childhood after arriving at Troyons, a Parisian restaurant, where he was ‘raised’ by the cruel and disreputable ‘Madame,’ and trained in the criminal arts by the mysterious Irishman, Bourke, who had a ‘heart as big as all outdoors,’ and took the young boy under his wing. Somehow, Michael survived until adulthood, and became a charming sort of rogue, a European jewel thief who worked alone (hence the nickname), despite a soft spot for damsels in distress and a yearning for travel.”
However, the character changed as the 20th century progressed, and as his exploits were portrayed a couple of dozen times on the big screen, and later on radio and in a syndicated, half-hour TV series titled, appropriately, The Lone Wolf . That last starred British-American actor Louis Hayward , found Lanyard reinterpreted as an American private eye of sorts, and ran for 39 episodes (1954-1955). You can watch colorized versions of most of those TV installments here .
(Vance’s protagonist should not be confused with this very different Lone Wolf , created by “Mike Barry,” aka Barry N. Malzberg .)
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