Johan Friedrich Von Allmen, a bon vivant of dandified refinement, has exhausted his family fortune by living in Old World grandeur despite present-day financial constraints. Forced to downscale, Allmen inhabits the garden house of his former Zurich estate, attended by his Guatemalan butler. When not reading novels by Balzac and Somerset Maugham, he plays jas on a Bechstein baby grand. Allmen's fortunes take a sharp turn when he meets a stunning blonde whose lakeside villa contains five Art Nouveau bowls created by renowned French artis Emile Galle and decorated with a dragonfly motif. Allmen, faced with mounting debts, absconds with the priceless bowls and embarks on a high-risk, potentially violent bid to cash them in. .

First published in German in 2011 as Allmen und die Libellen. copyright 2011 Diogenes Verlag AG Zurich. Translation copyright 2018 Stephen Morris Dragonfly image by E.A. Seguy, from E.A. Seguy's Insectes (QL466 .S49 1920), Plate 10, Special Collections Research Center at NCSU Libraries.