Book Review: Heist Society

Heist Society

Author: Ally Carter

Publish Date: February 2010

Publisher: Hyperion Book

When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her on a trip to the Louvre…to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria…to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own—scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving “the life” for a normal life proves harder than she’d expected.

Soon, Kat's friend and former co-conspirator, Hale, appears out of nowhere to bring Kat back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has a good reason: a powerful mobster has been robbed of his priceless art collection and wants to retrieve it. Only a master thief could have pulled this job, and Kat's father isn't just on the suspect list, he is the list. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly enemy, Kat’s dad needs her help.

For Kat, there is only one solution: track down the paintings and steal them back. So what if it's a spectacularly impossible job? She's got two weeks, a teenage crew, and hopefully just enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in her family's history--and, with any luck, steal her life back along the way.(Goodreads)

Around the world in eighty days has nothing on Kat and Hale’s investigative procedures. It’s more like running through Europe in less than fourteen days. I feel bad for Kat in a way as all she wants is to be normal.  It’s hard to be normal when you have to jet around the world to put pieces of a puzzle together.  Not that I think Kat minded, but I would have liked a bit more time to setting in an environment before being whisked off to the next one, but time is off the essence in this book. And it certainly feels that way when you’re reading.  

Kat is a bit more compliant that I expected at first. She loves her family deeply but at the same time she doesn’t want the same things they do. Primarily a life of crime and risky adventures. However, she’s brilliantly smart and knows that sometimes normal isn’t something within the spectrum of capability. The fact that she doesn’t fight for normal too hard makes me believe she didn’t really want it badly; she just wanted to call her own shots.  She wanted to make her own life decisions which, considering is completely understandable. 

Hale is… well Hale. There’s not anything he doesn’t try to play at. He’s charming, when he wants to be. Smart mouthed and charismatic under the same circumstances as well. It’s painfully obvious the rich kid loves attention (I think to make up for his parents lack thereof) but the attention he’s really craving is Kat’s and he goes above and beyond to get it. And with Hale it doesn’t have to be positive attention. Kat is cursing him as much as she’s nice to him. 

As I mentioned briefly before the story is quite fast paced. With deadlines set and the ticking clock constantly being reminded of in various ways it’s no wonder the book moves along quickly sweeping the reader away in the sands of time. There were several areas where only a handful of pages were spent in a specific locale before rushing off to the next one following the clues of a thief greater than any living legend. 

I enjoyed the story and while the love triangle seemed forced it was obviously not overly thought about or considered during the writing process. It was more like, crap I need another character what can I do to cause confusion and mix it up. Tada! Another boy overly interested in Kat, though his reasoning is much murkier then Hale’s. 

Overall I would definitely recommend it for easy, light reading. It was a fun read, nothing dank, or dreary. Serious or deadly. I’ll definitely be picking up the second one to see how our teen thieves fair on their next mission impossible. 

My Rating: