Before Raffles and Lupin there was Simon Carne
After the success of Dr Nikola, Guy Boothby created yet another bestselling series with Simon Carne, (with an alter ego as an eccentric detective Klimo), a gentleman thief whom one might say was in the Raffles mould, but who first appeared in Pearson's Magazine in 1897, predating Raffles by two years.
Carne moves in high society and is well known as a bon vivant and gentleman-about-town. Not many know that Carne is also a burglar and a master of disguise who carries out a double deception - posing as the detective Klimo while using his guise as a cover for a crime or even being called in to investigate his own crimes!
Fans of heist stories like The Thomas Crown Affair, or Ocean's Eleven or Dirty Rotten Scoundrels will enjoy this book.