Monday 2 January 2012

Review: Heist Society by Ally Carter

Heist Society by Ally Carter
Published by Orchard 2010



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 her back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has 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 history-or at least her family's (very crooked) history.


Heist Society had been sitting in my TBR pile for quite a while until I read a review recently that made me really want to pick it up. I can safely say that I wasn't disappointed. 

This story was a breath of fresh air. For once, I wasn't reading about vampires or werewolves, witches, sirens or anything supernatural. Nope, just a great book about a family of thieves. The story is very family-oriented, which I really liked because there's nothing better than reading about a group who know each other well and operate together effectively. Kat was an interesting character who was instantly likeable. She was smart, pretty and a great leader. Hale, Kat's best friend, was very charming and had the typical swoon-worthy look and persona. Nonetheless, he was a favourite of mine. The supporting characters were also great and I loved them all; they all added flavour to the story and were hilarious at more than one point during their heist. However, my absolute favourite thing about this book is that it's set in a variety of different places all over the globe. Carter handled the descriptions and feel of each place really well and it really helped make the story greater than it already was. The tricks of their trade were also very intriguing and the names they gave for all the techniques they could use were very funny. Overall, this was an easy and enjoyable read filled with loveable characters and a really good story about one hell of a good heist. Heist Society was great and I'm considering picking up Ally Carter's Gallagher Girls series now. Looking forward to the next book in the Heist Society series, called Uncommon Criminals

4.5 stars

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