Heist Society #1
Release Date: February 9, 2010 (US)
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Rating: Enjoyable
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 Page
Katarina Bishop is a con artist. Her whole family are. So are all her friends. One friend in particular, a mysterious guy named Hale, decides that it's time to break Kat out of her top class boarding school so she can return to how her life was before. 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 Page
Kat finds out that her dad is in trouble with a rich businessman, something about stolen paintings, and she is determined to help him. So basically she has to retrieve some stolen paintings from a high security museum for a rich bloke in order to save her dad. Sounds so simple, doesn't it?
I enjoyed Ally's Gallagher Girls series and so I just had to pick this one up. I'm also a fan of the TV show White Collar, which stars Matt Bomer as a world renowned art thief. This book felt a lot like a mixture of Gallagher Girls and White Collar. I kept imagining Neal Caffrey waltzing into the museum to con everyone inside. Aw, I love him.
Anyway, back on topic. Kat was a bit of a plain character, much like the FMC in the Gallagher Girls series. I would have liked her better if she had a bit more spunk about her. That said, I definitely didn't not like Kat. She was pretty cool.
Out of all of the characters, I have to say that my favourite is Hale. He was hilarious, and hot, and awesome, and funny. Total fangirl over here! I also loved his banter with Kat, and his relationship with her overall was awesome. There was a bit of a hint of a love triangle as well, but that all works out in the end, thank goodness. I don't know what I'd have done with myself if it hadn't.
Overall, this was a pretty plain book. I did love reading about the planning stages of the heist/s, and the cons themselves. It was all very interesting. However, I felt very let down by the plain main character. Nonetheless, Heist Society was an enjoyable read and I'm definitely going to be picking up Uncommon Criminals at some point in the future.
(I'm trying out a new rating scale, by the way, so that's the reason for this review not including a star rating!)
