Portrait Of A Thief - Grace D Li

Fiction/Thriller

Rating: 7/10

No one is more surprised than Will that he snatched a priceless artifact while a heist was in progress at the museum where he worked.

That’s not all he finds in his pocket when he gets home from giving his statement to the police.  There’s a business card with an invitation, one he can’t resist.

Incredulously, in the blink of an eye he’s assembling a crew. The leader, the con artist, the thief, the hacker, and the getaway driver.  The goal is to steal back art stolen from their home country of China and make a shit ton of money doing it. To call them unlikely thieves would be a wild understatement.

This is not just a heist novel, it’s about a group of individuals on the cusp of adulthood trying to be brave enough to choose to be who they really are, rather than who they are expected to be.

The reveal was a sleight of hand, much like the scenes in Ocean’s Eleven where the audience is brought into the loop of how they pulled it off only at the end. Just a lot more bumbling and a lot less cool.

Book Pairing(s): extended list of novels set in the art world; heists, forgeries and so many more hidden treasures!

Attribution – Linda Moore

Woman On Fire – Lisa Barr

Fake – Erica Katz

The Burnt Orange Heresy – Charles Willeford

The Last Mona Lisa – Jonathan Santlofer

The Art Forger – B.A. Shapiro

Chasing Cezanne – Peter Mayle

False Impression – Jeffrey Archer

A Discerning Eye – Carol Orange

Loot – Aaron Elkins

The Flanders Panel – Arturo Perez-Reverte

The Sidewalk Artist – Gina Buonaguro

The Swan Thieves – Elizabeth Kostova

Saints of Swallow Hill – Donna Everhart

The Goldfinch – Donna Tartt

The Heist – Daniel Silva

The Appraisal – Anna Porter

The Painter – Peter Heller

Still Lives – Maria Hummel