Heist Society by Ally Carter

January 31, 2012

Kat hasn't exactly had what you might call a "normal upbringing" -- being raised by the best art thief alive. That's why she's decided to give up the family business for a taste of normal adolescence. Her best scam yet lands her in an elite boarding school...for a blissful three months.

Of course, her best friend and former partner, Hale, shows up with different plans. He successfully gets her booted out after framing her for a big prank. With no other options readily available, she heads home with him. It turns out that maybe his reasons weren't entirely selfish. Her dad seems to be the target of his own frame job and is now in very real danger from a mobster (Arturo) whose art has been stolen.

Five paintings were stolen by a thief calling himself Visily Romani. How the pieces were stolen is another matter and one of the reasons her father is suspected. The security at Arturo's is state-of-the-art, and that's putting it lightly. Kat tries to talk to Arturo, explaining that her father is innocent. But, he's having none of it. He tells her that if his paintings aren't returned in ten days, someone will be making a house call, and her father's going to end up dead. With that motivation, Kat gets to work.

First, she does her research. Kat calls Uncle Eddie (everyone's "uncle" in the business) for intel on her thief. Visily Romani, it turns out, is a sacred name. Thieves use it as a pseudonym for things too big to be known even between each other. Her next stop is finding out what she can about the history of the paintings. She learns they were stolen by the Nazis during WWII. These paintings were stolen property long before they found their way to Arturo's it seems.

The lost paintings are discovered (cleverly disguised) at the Henley Museum: one of the truly great art museums in the world and one with an overwhelming amount of security. If Kat is going to steal them back, she's going to need help. She puts together her crew, which is no small task. This job needs to fly under the radar, even for a thief! Hale is at her side, her cousin Gabrielle, the Bagshaw Brothers, and one cute (male) pickpocket join in. Impossible or not, the heist is on; her father's life hangs in the balance. Can they pull it off?

This fast paced, sassy novel is another great girl action story from Carter. I think I enjoyed it even more than her Gallagher Girls series. She maintains strong female characters without diminishing their intelligence. Check out Ally Carter's site.

"The guards might have seen the boy throw his arm around the girl's neck and hold a camera out in front of them, snapping pictures. They might have noticed how the couple paced from one end of the wall to the next. They didn't, of course, see that the pictures were really of the positions of the cameras, that their paced steps were mapping out the dimensions of the perimeter wall.
They were simply two teens who appeared to be in the midst of a great autumn.
But, of course, the guards didn't see a lot of things," (Carter pg. 142, 2010).

If you liked this, check out:

Uncommon Criminals by Ally Carter (Heist Society, Book 2)
I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You by Ally Carter (Gallagher Girls, Book 1)
Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
Spy Goddess: Live and Let Shop by Michael Spradlin (Spy Goddess, Book 1)

Carter, Ally. (2010). Heist Society. New York: Disney/Hyperion.

Abbey L.
South Independence Branch