Describe for yourself the perfect burglar. Think for a minute. How about small enough to wriggle through a pet door? Shinny up a drainpipe? What about appearance? Maybe female, young (20ish), attractive and in good shape? Able to fit in as a co-ed home from college back east somewhere?
Thomas Perry may have invented the perfect thief in Elle Stowell. She fits right into all those categories, and she is a professional. Adept at spotting the tell-tale signs that a house is empty, she can be found running through upscale neighborhoods early and late, sporting expensive running shoes and college sweatshirts. No one gives her a second look as she blends in to the scenery, just another fitness nut pursuing her passion.
What Elle is really doing is pursuing her livelihood, and she is very, very good at it. But things go off the rails suddenly when she opens the door to the master suite in the home of an art gallery owner and finds three bodies, shot while enjoying a three-way. The only thing Elle takes from that house is a camera, still running, which may or may not have captured her image as she entered the room.
The action accelerates as Elle becomes the quarry of – who? Someone is stalking her. Someone obviously had other cameras running in the house, and it quickly becomes apparent to Elle that she must solve the murders to prevent becoming the next victim.
The pace is fast and the plot, while seemingly “out there,” is believable. Elle could be the next jogger coming down the sidewalk. The Burglar could be the first in a good series.

The Burglar ⭐️

She is scouting out her next house when everything starts to fall apart. I like that she uses her brain when stealing and making a quiet get away. It showed that even though she is a bad person she has the capability to do more with her life because of her knowledge and skills.
I really enjoyed the writing and the protagonist was fun and likeable and it was a really good book.


Thank you so much to booksgosocial via netgalley for sending me an ARC copy of the Burglar by Thomas Perry. This will be released on January 18,2019.
All opinions are my own.

I am a big fan of Thomas Perry. THE OLD MAN, his 2017 title, was one of my favorites for the year. His Edgar-winning THE BUTCHER'S BOY is a classic of the genre. All of that said, Perry is incapable of writing a bad novel. Unfortunately, at least for me, THE BURGLAR comes close. I am disappointed to say that I found this a slog to get through. The premise is interesting enough: a female burglar stumbles upon a nasty triple homicide while working a house. There is plenty of trade craft--those unique details of burglary that clearly come from copious research. The main character, Elle Stowell, has an interesting back story. Perry's writing is crisp and clear. I can't quite put my finger on what was missing, but overall my reaction to the reading was pretty muted. I certainly will read Perry again, but this one is a thumb's-down for me.

This is the first time is read anything from Thomas Perry. I really loved it! It was so hard to put it down. Full of great characters and lots of suspense. Highly recommend!

I have been a Thomas Perry fan for years but this was a huge disappointment. I felt plotwise that I had read this story before. A lot. This story lacked his usual twists and interesting characters. I finished the book even though I had lost interest early on and ended up being sorry I did. If you like Perry and have read his other amazing books and loved them like I have you may want to skip this one.

I am a big fan of Thomas Perry but I have to admit that I did not enjoy The Burglar as much as I had anticipated. The book starts off with a bang, and has good tempo, making it an easy read, but there were aspects that I found somewhat undeveloped.
The plot is a take on the common burglar stumbles on murder scene and has to solve the murder before either being implicated by the police or hunted by the perpetrators. Lawrence Block wrote a whole series on this premise. Perry does a good job of making this unique by really getting into the head of the burglar, Elle. I really enjoyed learning what was going on through her mind as she breaks into a home, or even scouts out potential targets. It’s clear that Perry did a lot of research to make the burglary scenes as credible as possible. As is often the case with Perry, we learn a lot about the main character efficiently, her backstory includes the pertinent, without weighing the reader down with too much information.
The plotting of the book doesn’t do the characters any favors however. Elle, who is smart about many things, takes forever to realize that she’s not being hunted down by the police but by someone who knows she’s on to them, which I found to be unrealistic. I like the idea of the art scam that got everything in motion, but it wasn’t presented in a way that flowed with the plot or told us anything until the very end. And it wouldn’t be accurate to say that Elle figured out anything, in the last few pages of the book she was listening through the wall as one of the characters decided to spell out the whole plot from art fraud to murder to another character. I would fully expect this to be something that came out through the narration of the story, revealing bits at a time as one or more of the characters learn what’s going on.
In short, I liked the parts, but not the assembly.

This book pulled me in from the title! The plot is like nothing that I have ever heard of, a female burglar. Very clever and very detailed. I love the backstory and intricate details but other readers may not like slower pace as the story builds.

I received free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an impartial review. Thank you NetGalley and Grove Atlantic!

I enjoyed the premise of this book. A young female (!) burglar stumbles upon a horrific crime before she is able to complete her own nonviolent one. I liked the twists and turns in the story but I felt oddly disconnected from the main character even though the entire novel was in her voice. I had hopes that the author would go a little more in depth with her history or her story as to why she preferred so much isolation.

That said, I enjoyed the story itself and it kept me guessing until the reveal! This is a great little read as long as you are not looking for a character study. My rating is 3.5 for The Burglar.

I had read the author, Thomas Perry's last two books, the Old Man and the Bomb Maker. The Old Man was one of the better books I had read in 2017. The Bomb Maker on the other hand was not my cup of tea. I jumped on the newest book, The Burglar with some trepidation.

I was very happy to read a book that was much as a joy to read as the Old man. The protagonist, a female named Elle, has her occupation as a burglar planned out too a tee.. Perry has this character meticulously developed. Her approach to casing homes, the knowledge of executing the burglary, and her interactions with the supporting characters.. Although she is a criminal, Perry makes the reader really find Elle to be likable.

Perry slowly develops the plot, which is very plausible and believable, and draws the reader along with clues and details that are both challenging and suspenseful, The prose is engaging and maintains steady pace.all the while working towards a culminating conflict.

This book is a great read.

The Burglar is my first book by Thomas Perry, and I chose it because when Verushka mentioned it on her blog, I thought it sounded like fun.

Elle is young, small, and fit. Being small is a good thing when you want to burgle a house and entry through a doggy door presents no problem. Elle is a professional; she knows the skills of the trade from the burglary itself to the right fence for the goods.

However, when Elle burgles the home of an art dealer, she discovers a triple homicide and a camera still running on the scene. What to do? She takes the camera, edits out her own presence, and returns it for the police to find.

Unfortunately, her attempt to aid the the police in finding out who committed the murders goes awry, and Elle finds herself a target.

Read in July; blog review scheduled for Dec. 26.

NetGalley/Grove Atlantic/Mysterious Press
Suspense. Jan. 8, 2019. Print length: 304 pages.

I lost interest in this book very quickly and did not finish it. Because I did not finish it I am unable to leave a review.

First, I really like Thomas Perry so thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this manuscript.
This story is about Elle a young pretty girl who supports herself by being a burglar. She comes from a family of thieves and grifters who abandoned her when she was a teen. She was able to take care of herself by being smarter than the people around her.
Elle is a very accomplished burglar. She plans and stakes out the homes she breaks into, and she knows what to take, and how to fence it without getting caught. Then she hit a huge problem when she broke into a house and found the victims of a horrible murder. Unfortunately hidden cameras showed her to the bad guys, and she finds herself being hunted. Elle decides the only way to end this is to solve the murder and expose the bad guys. The book takes on her complicated dangerous journey to find the killer and get enough evidence to give to the police.
She is a typical Thomas Perry heroine. She is smart, pretty and somewhat a loner. Although there was a part of the book where I thought she should have figured someone out sooner, the story works well.

From my review on Goodreads:

I always love Thomas Perry books. The details he includes, the nearly step-by-step actions his protagonists take, keep me following the plot, even if the plot itself is not strong.

In The Burglar, Perry’s new novel, his protagonist is a young woman living in Los Angeles who earns her living by being a successful house burglar. We go with her and her every step, getting ready, breaking into a house, what she looks for, how she hides or what decisions she might have to make.

When she breaks into the home of a wealthy art dealer, she stumbles upon him with two women, and they’ve all been murdered. As she stands in the doorway, she sees a camera that is recording the scene. And this is where the story begins to move into a thriller, where she’s forced into a race to save her life.

I like the detail Perry pays to his characters and their actions. This protagonist reminds me of Jane Whitefield, his brilliantly conceived character who takes people running from something into hiding and new lives. The same level of detail in the Whitefield novels is applied here.

Thank you so much to NetGalley for the advanced reader copy.

Thomas Perry is incapable of writing a bad book, but this isn't one of his many good and a few great ones. It's about a smart, skillful young woman who's very good at her work - thoroughly prepared, at the top of her game, the peak of physical fitness, and so good at breaking into all kinds of places that she's never been caught burgling the homes of wealthy Angelenos. But Elle, the eponymous protagonist, never quite interests the reader enough to care about what will happen when the mysterious black SUVs keep turning up at the scenes of her crimes, even when they murder her best friend. The plot is murky - what the killers want and how what Elle may or may not have seen at the site of a triple murder connects to it - isn't enough to propel it to a So what ? conclusion.

I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to others. Elle is a burglar - and she is good at it. She discovers a homicide while "on the job" and then discovers that she has become a target. She races to solve the mystery before she becomes another victim.

Thomas Perry always delivers solid entertainment, and complex characters. Elle is a delight, and I hope she comes back in future books like Jane Whitfield. While there were scenes and instances that stretch believability, the novel is an excellent escape from the daily grind, and in fact, I think it would make a terrific movie or series.

I loved the premise - a female burgler, who makes her living breaking into houses, sees too much on one job. I really liked the fast pace of the first half. Unfortunately, the second half slowed down a lot. The last part of the book involves a conversation tying the pieces together. The fact that this conversation took multiple pages shows that the rest of the book seemed to be missing a lot. There is no way you could have figured out what was going on without that explanation. One other thing, the main character had no personality. She was a professional but I never really got to know her. 4 stars because of the plot and attention to the burgling details,

(3). What an unusual book, a veritable roller coaster ride. The first half is high speed, petal to the metal all the way. The next quarter is snoozy, try to stay engaged. The last quarter, pretty strong, some good, some not so good. I expected more after the wonderful start but I always enjoy Perry, he has been on my must read list for a couple of years now. Luckily, this one is short enough that the overall experience is enjoyable.

Enjoyable book. Complicated plot. It was tough to figure out what was going on. Some exciting moments. Toward end of book it slowed somewhat while it was explained what was going on. However, it ok ked back up again. It is a case of a small burglar vs a number of killers. Some close calls for her. Recommended. This father's Jane Whitefields books are excellent too. They are all highly recommended.

Thomas Perry is the accomplished author of some 25 fictional suspense novels and winner of many awards for his work. After reading “The Burglar,” I join those who sing his praises. The most common trait he gets credit for is his plotting but his other writing skills are commendable and on full display in this intricate novel.

Elle Stowell, a young woman in her twenties, has a stimulating occupation that she intends to continue. She’s a burglar; a very accomplished burglar who knows all the tricks. In “The Burglar,” she takes the reader along as she gets involved in an art fraud scheme that turns into a murderous blowup that catches her in the middle. She applies her meticulous thought process into attempting to solve the murders, intent on getting the information to the police, while never revealing her existence in the dim fringes of a wealthy and politically powerful society. The shadows are the secret to her success and she intends to stay there.

Her efforts, however, put her in line to be included among the murders when the murderous thugs discovers her presence. She is accumulating evidence against them that will end their scheme if she is allowed to disclose it. So, while skulking among the killers, she has to spend a lot of time running from them. Her nefarious career, along with her life, is threatened if she doesn’t display the same inventiveness in her investigation as she does breaking into expensive houses.

Perry is as painstaking in the construction of his tale as a watchmaker. No detail goes unexplained or seems unbelievable. No pathway remains unconnected. Every spring is wound tight.

I gained much information about breaking into houses and it sounds like an exciting enterprise. There’s lots of peeking at houses, mechanical skill in operating lock picks and slitting window screens, lots of scampering around steep, slick roofs, and learning to shake dogs off your leg who have taken umbrage at your appearance. You probably won’t want to take up this particular task but Perry, at least, is the place to start a nefarious attraction.