Publishing History

• Cosmopolitan. Vol. 131, no. 6 (Dec. 1951)
• New York: Random House, 1952
• In Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, Winter 1952 Selections. Pleasantville, N.Y.: Reader’s Digest Association, 1952, p. 397-503 (Condensed)
• New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1953 (Dell 658)
• London: Michael Joseph, 1953
• Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1955 (Penguin 1053)
• Connecticut: Williamson Book Co., [after 1955]
• In Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. London, Sydney and Cape Town: Reader’s Digest Association, [1956?], p. 409-503 (Condensed)
• In Anthology of Mystery and Suspense (Reader’s Digest Book Club). Pleasantville, N.Y.: Reader’s Digest Association, 1959, p. 224-315 (Condensed)
• In The Reader’s Digest Anthology of Mystery and Suspense London, Sydney, Cape Town: Reader’s Digest Association, 1961, p. [300]-388 (Condensed)
• London: White Lion Publishers Ltd., 1972; ISBN: 0856178039
• In The Golden Age of Film: Four Novels That Captivated Hollywood. Ultimo, N.S.W.: Reader’s Digest Australia, 2009 (Condensed)
• London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1988 (Mastercrime); ISBN: 0460125575
• Eugene, Or.: Bruin Books, 2010 (Bruin Crimeworks); ISBN: 978-0982633939 [Buy this book]
• New York: Diversion Books, 2015. [Kindle edition]; ISBN: 978-1626816008 [Buy this book]

Summary

   David Dodge’s eighth novel, To Catch a Thief, represents a distinct departure in style and subject matter from his previous works of fiction. John Robie, aka Le Chat, is a retired American jewel thief living quietly in a luxurious villa, Villa des Bijoux, on the Côte d’Azur. His peace and quiet is disrupted when a string of copycat burglaries lead the flics to suspect that Le Chat has returned to his old habits. In addition, Robie’s freedom is threatened by an unfinished jail term of 20 years, for which he has only unofficial amnesty. Convinced that the authorities would never believe him innocent, Robie decides to take matters into his own hands.

The distinction between thief and non-thief was a state of mind.... Just as a burglar did not cease to be a burglar between actual housebreakings, he need not necessarily change his nature after age and stiffening joints made it impossible for him to climb to second-story windows.... He was retired, not reformed. He was still Le Chat, with Le Chat’s mind.    Or I wouldn’t be here doing the Sûreté’s work for them, he thought. Set a thief to catch a thief. Whoever had said it first must have been a thief himself, to see so clearly the thief’s mind.    To Catch a Thief, Chapter 5

   The novel was extremely successful. As Dodge wrote in The Rich Man’s Guide to the Riviera, “... Le Chat caught on. A number of other people saw in the yarn potentialities for revision, reshaping and improvement. It was condensed, boiled down, digested, redigested, reprinted, book-clubbed, synopsized, subjected to scenario treatment and ultimately blown up into a movie by Alfred Hitchcock. All that survived in the end were the title, the names of some of the characters and the copyright, which was mine.” [The copyright later became Kendal’s, but that is another story]