In 1952, David Dodge wrote To Catch a Thief, which was turned into a stellar Hitchcock movie with CarGrant and Grace Kelly. O'Neill has written a sequel to this book/movie. It's a year later, and Francie is coming back to the Riveria to model clothes designed by Marcel Julian. John Robie is still there and staying mostly on the straight and narrow. John and Francie stayed in touch until her last letter, when she tells him how selfish he is, only thinking of himself and how he'll always be a thief. John was devastated by the letter and is determined to see her while she is in Cannes and convince her otherwise. However, Francie has moved on to a man named Alex, who was the one who introduced her to Julian and who only thinks of her, a decidedly different man from John.
John wants an invite to the party the night before the fashion show and knows that his government friend Paul, who is also a Count, will have tickets, so John offers his services to collect the information Paul needs to shut down a spy network at the party. Paul has little information. John uses his thief skills to learn more about this spy ring by first following someone across the rooftops and catching the man before he can jump, but the man escapes his hold and falls to his death with a bag full of money that John steals. He was more scared of who he was working for and being caught alive than death.
John finds Francie, and she tells him off in a very hurtful way. John tries to explain that his whole life, he has only had himself to depend on, which is why he seems selfish. But then Alex shows up, puts his arm around Francie, and John realizes that she has indeed moved on and is happy. John is by no means giving up on her. He does, however, become sidetracked by spies and a local cop who was made a fool of when John turned out not to be the cat burglar in the first book, who is trying to set him up if he can't catch him in the act.
It also turns out that Francie has been handing envelopes with secret messages to and from different people. While Paul thinks she may be in on it, John refuses to believe it of her.
The author winks at you a bit in this book when he makes a reference to an English director and when Francie lands in the Prince of Monaco’s lap at the fashion show. Grace Kelly met the Prince while shooting the movie and left Hollywood for him.
This is a really good book. My favorite character is Vittorio, John’s house keeper who comes from Italy and works for him to pay off a debt she feels she owes him for helping out her and her twelve brothers. Vittorrio will jump on the back of a man to attack him and has a comedic way about her. I really would have loved to see Hitchcock make this book into a movie.
