The mystery world suffered a major loss when the creator of CIA agent Matt Helm, Donald Hamilton, died late in 2006. Although Hamilton was once a major figure in the world of espionage fiction, his death was unreported, probably because the author lived for much of his later years in Sweden (which feared that reporting the death might be insulting to fellow members of the United Nations).

Ninety years old when he died, Hamilton had not published a new book for more than a decade and his works were out of print, belying the fact that they had been regulars on the paperback best-seller lists for many years and had been praised by fellow authors and critics, including Anthony Boucher, who wrote: “Donald Hamilton has brought to the spy novel the authentic hard realism of Hammett, and his stories are as compelling, and probably as close to the sordid truth of espionage, as any now being told.”

There were 27 Matt Helm novels, beginning with “Death of a Citizen” in 1947 and ending with “The Damagers” in 1993. Although Helm was often compared with his British counterpart, James Bond, they were completely unalike. Whereas Bond was a sophisticate who knew wine, expensive cars, and tuxedos, Helm lived much of the time in the American Southwest, drove a pickup truck, and wore flannel shirts.

The success of the Bond movies made Matt Helm irresistible to Hollywood studios, which made a series of four films starring Dean Martin, who was as much like Helm as Al Sharpton is like Bernard Baruch. Martin dressed like Bond and all the films had abundant babes, wild technical gadgets, and global threats from super-villains.

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Fans of the creator of Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane might like to know that the Dorothy L. Sayers Society is holding its convention in America this year — at Wheaton College, which is just outside Chicago and is the unlikely repository of her papers.

The four-day event begins on June 13, the 114th anniversary of Sayers’s birth. For many more details about this major event, check out www.sayers.org.uk/events/wheaton2007 and www.sayers.org.uk. Only members can attend, but it’s easy to join.

Last month, the Sayers society also reissued the long out-of-print “Wimsey Family” by C.W. Scott-Giles, a delightful tongue-in-cheek history of Lord Peter’s distinguished family. Scott-Giles had engaged in a lengthy correspondence with Sayers during the 1930s and ’40s, and together they pieced together this history, complete with the family coat of arms, which whimsically includes three mice and, of course, a cat. The history is available only on the society’s Web site.

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The tantalizing attraction to stories of con men, grifters, jewel thieves, and other rogues of fiction cannot be denied. Not thugs, murderers, bank robbers, and other crass elements of criminal society, of course, but those brilliant nonviolent thieves who contrive a meticulous plan to separate treasure from its owner, relying only on their wits and courage.

The single major trait shared by most colorful burglars and safecrackers is their emulation of Robin Hood, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Why it is generally regarded as socially acceptable to steal from the rich has always eluded me, especially when we remember that Democrats have identified the combined salaries of most middle-class working couples as among the rich.

A splendid new short story collection, “Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Thief” (Penguin, 278 pages, $14) features just such a rogue, and the collection features Michael Sims’s erudite introduction both to Lupin and to other great rogues, which is less than reverential to one of my favorite literary figures, Raffles, the most memorable amateur cracksmen of them all: a gentleman to the end, most of whose thefts are perpetrated in order to help someone in need.

Lupin, too, often donates the proceeds of his thievery to charity, but this character, as famous in France as Sherlock Holmes is in America and Britain, rarely resembles his English partner in crime. To appreciate these tales fully, both a sense of humor and a willingness to suspend all disbelief are required.

His disguises fool everyone; he joins the police department and is promoted so quickly that he is assigned to catch himself; his names changes from story to story; and he outsmarts Holmes more than once, even pickpocketing him.

Realistic? No. Fun? Definitely. Arsene Lupin will steal into your heart.

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And, as George V. Higgins notes in “The Friends of Eddie Coyle,” “This life’s hard, but it’s harder if you’re stupid.”

Mr. Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan and the series editor of the annual “Best American Mystery Stories.” He can be reached at ottopenzler@mysteriousbookshop.com.