The Lone Wolf Book Review.

Title: The Lone Wolf.
Author: Louis Joseph Vance.
Genre: Action/Adventure, Turn-of-the-Century, Drama, Redemptive, Espionage, Romance, Classic.
Plot: A little known inn called Troyon's in 1893, one cold wet night, becomes the home of a five year old boy who is quite obviously English but beyond that, nothing is ever known about his origins. The owners of the inn, Madame and Papa Troyon, take the boy in and Madame immediately puts him to work. The boy rapidly grows up, under the name of Marcel {"which wasn't his name,"} and spends his nights wandering all over Paris and his days in school and when out of school dodging the servants, Madame's fists, and learning everything he could. He learned how to sneak about without making any sound, he learned to read and eventually learned to read English before he could speak it, and how to defend himself. By the age of fifteen he was quite the fighter and practiced petty thief. One day he crosses one of the inn's frequent {and eccentric} patrons; an Irishman by the name of Bourke who turns out to be a thief himself and whisks Marcel off with him to America where he teaches him the finer details of their common trade, illegal though it be. When they left, Marcel forsook the name of Marcel and became known to the world as Michael Lanyard.
One of the many lessons Bourke drilled into Lanyard was to never let a woman into his life. "To let love into your life you must open a door no mortal hand can close. And God only knows what'll follow in." These lessons stay with Lanyard and serve him well when he returns to Paris in 1910, around the age of twenty-two, with Scotland Yard and possibly British government agents tailing him. By chance, Lanyard finds himself at Troyon's which, he is astonished to find, has changed owners and vastly improved since last he was there. Lanyard has supper in the dining room where he spots Roddy, a Scotland Yard agent; a Frenchman with a nasty reputation with which Lanyard is familiar by the name of Comte Remy de Morbihan who is seated nearby with two Americans: an elderly man and a rather pretty young woman. Lanyard and Roddy both listen to the interesting conversation of the other three, during which Lanyard learns to his concern that his secret double-identity is known or suspected by the authorities.
But this is only the beginning of a very busy short span of time in which Lanyard quickly comes to the conclusion that he must flee Paris for his life. However, when the mysterious and quite obviously troubled American girl, Luchia Bannon, falls in with him, intent on getting out of Paris also, Lanyard is inspired by her purity to turn his life around and give up thieving for good. Lanyard opens his heart to love, unaware if he can withstand what follows in and survive the blow.
Likes/Dislikes: A very well written, delightfully well written if I may so, action adventure complete with a dashing hero, a car chase and a gun fight, all in 1910 Paris, France! The vocabulary and descriptions were wonderful and painted the picture so well without getting the reader sidetracked with unnecessary details. Lanyard does say "damn" a few times but I didn't find this objectable. The end leaves us still unaware of Lanyard's origins; perhaps these are explained in the sequel? J

Rating: PG-10 and up for the reading level. Highly recommended!
Date Report Written: April 22, 2011.