by P.G. Wodehouse
Read "The Intrusion of Jimmy" in the Book Club

After attending a play about a burglar, Jimmy Pitt bets the lead actor that burgling a house isn't so difficult after all. His attempts to win the bet help him find a girl he fell in love with from afar, but also get him in trouble with her father. In typical Wodehouse style, things get more complex when Jimmy runs off to England months later and encounters the girl, her father, and Jimmy's old "partner in crime."

MAJOR CHARACTERS:

Jimmy Pitt: A clever and charismatic American who is mistaken by the father of the girl he loves for a jewel thief.

Molly McEachern: The girl Jimmy fell in love with from afar during a cruise.

John McEachern: Molly's father, a police officer who believes Jimmy to be a jewel thief, and who may have some shady connections of his own.

Spike Mullins: A real burglar who believes Jimmy to be an expert cracksman; while in England, Spike pretends (rather badly) to be Jimmy's valet.

"Spennie": The Earl of Dreever, whose uncle is pestering him to marry Molly -- Spennie, meanwhile, is looking elsewhere.

The Intrusion of Jimmy, also published under the title A Gentleman of Leisure, is a novelization of Wodehouse's serial The Gem Collector. While the two are similar enough that it confused me at first (when I didn't realize one was based on the other), there are just enough differences to make both of them worth a read. Fans of the Jeeves & Wooster series will relate more readily to Spennie than to Jimmy, as Spennie is much more in the style of Wodehouse's "idle rich" stereotype. While not as continuously humorous as Jeeves & Wooster, The Intrusion of Jimmy is generally funny and upbeat.