To Catch a Thief by David Dodge

This novel by US writer David Dodge was adapted by Alfred Hitchcock into an iconic 1955 film set in the French Riviera and starring Grace Kelly and Cary Grant. It tells the story of US expat and specialist jewellery cat-burglar John Robie, known as Le Chat, who was freed from jail during the war.

He joins the Resistance, forming lifelong friendships with some of his fellow ex-cons.

Having gone straight and become a pillar of his French village society, he is annoyed by the arrival of a new thief, who seems to be copying his old acrobatic burglary techniques. Worse, the friendly local police chief implies that he may have to break Robie’s cover unless the thief is caught.

Robie assumes a new identity to pursue the thief, poses as an American tourist at the local grand hotel (the Carlton, in Cannes, was used for the film). He befriends the mother of beautiful American oil heiress Francie Stevens, whom he believes could be the next victim. The daughter susses his real identity, then finds herself falling in love with him.

Dodge got the idea after his neighbours on the Cote d'Azur were burgled — the police even suspected the author, who had left the country just after the theft.

Oxford broadcaster Jean Buchanan travelled to France in an attempt to find the Dodges' villa, and has recorded her search in a Radio 4 arts feature In Search of the Villa Noel Fleuri, today at 11.30 am. She has also dramatised the novel in this week’s Radio 4 Saturday Afternoon Play, at 2.30 pm.