What a cleverly written story. Such a different take on the whodunit.

I enjoyed this book and would love to know what other escapades Elle could get into.

Was not sure I would like a book with the good guy being a thief but this one got me hooked. Loved the character and her survival instincts even when she did things that made me want to yell at her to stop. Hope this will be a series. the suspense kept me reading late into the night.

So, I liked almost everything about this book.

I loved Elle. She was whip smart and so likable.

I was absolutely fascinated by all the nitty gritty of her burglaries. I mean, this was almost like a manual for the perfect life of crime. Lol – and I say this with all respect – the author would probably be a master criminal if he set his mind to it. This was awesome!

I was a little disappointed by the reason for everything. It fit the lifestyles of our criminals and victims well. I was a very ‘only the rich’ kind of scenario. But…I found it al little…unexciting.

Still, though, I really enjoyed the book. It was a fast and fascinating read and I ended it thinking that it was time very well spent!

*ARC Provided via Net Galley

I received this book with the promise I would submit an unbiased review.

This was a very interesting read. I am a fan of mysteries and this was a good one. It follows a young lady burglar and gives you a good look into her insights of a burglary from the choosing, planning, and execution of the robbery. In this case she stumbles into a bigger crime and becomes a target.

She is placed into the unusual situation of trying to help the police and solve the crime on her own. If only for her own safety.

I felt this was a well written and interesting book. It kept your interest and made you look forward to picking it up and continuing your reading. I usually read at night and I looked forward to it for the few days it took to finish. Highly recommend and will look for more from this author.

Do not start this book before bed—you will not get to sleep on time! Very interesting topic and lead character, non-stop action. Very well-researched as always.
Liz willner
Books inc, Berkeley

The Burglar, a murder mystery, follows the day-to-day exploits of Elle Stowell a experienced house burglar in Los Angeles. Stowell looks younger than her age and is able fit right in with the beautiful, fit and energetic women who live in the neighborhoods that she robs. The Burglar is the latest in a series of several books written by Thomas Perry.

Elle Stowell has never been arrested for Burglary in spite of the fact that she has robbed multiple house in well to do neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Things are going well for Stowell until she stumbles onto the scene of a multiple murder and she begins being pursued by someone who must have seen her on site. To save herself she must now use her skills to solve a crime rather than commit one.

Thomas Perry has received numerous accolades for his excellent books, but I expect this one will not be remembered as one of his best. The descriptions of how to break into a house and what to steal are tedious. When Elle is discovered she seems to be able to carry on staying in nice hotels and sleep well while people around her are being murdered. When the murderers are revealed, their motives for committing several crimes seem superficial and opportunistic rather than skillfully planned. Finally how could a security company hired to monitor break-ins not know someone was monitoring their offices for weeks. All this makes the book hard to read.

The book is structurally and grammatically well written and a quick read, but the story line leaves me with no choice but to not recommend this book. I give it a 2 on 5.

I want to thank NetGalley and The Mysterious Press for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.

An experienced burglar stumbles upon a menage a toi murder while looking for quick cash. Unaware of a camera recording the fateful deaths of these three and now her discovery of such a sight, the burglar is quickly drawn into an amateurs investigation to solve the crime. Taking unnecessary risks to discover the truth and do the right thing by the three deceased, the burglar uses her size and skill to her advantage while collecting data that will convict the perp once discovered. Her profession proves to assist her in discovering the truth and bringing justice to those who acted above the law.
The story is just interesting enough and paced slow, quick, slow, quick, to keep the reader engaged. However, I felt that some of the main characters actions were not characteristic of the level of experience the author indicates. Also, felt some of the writing was redundant but still written well, not distracting from the story. The ending was somewhat predictable and indicative that the burglar reconsidered her profession and sought to make a change and finally settle down, a good ending to an adrenaline pumping book.

A young - and very clever- burglar breaks into a home in search of cash and jewels and finds three people murdered in bed with a camera rolling. It gets better. She steals the camera, deletes any pictures of herself, breaks in to the house again and replaces the camera. Now she is being hunted by the killers. She launches her own exhaustive investigation while several attempts are made on her life. Well written. Excellent plot o

2.5 stars
A fascinating story poorly told. There is so much extraneous information that has nothing to do with the plot or the characters that it urges one to skip over pages. The main character is inconsistent; a young obsessive compulsive woman burglar who, while touted as highly intelligent, does many dumb, self-destructive things.
With a great deal of tight editing, this would have the potential of a bestseller.

This was an interesting take on the burglar prototype! Young, small and pretty, this burgler was at the top of her game, until she ran into a triple murder in the house she chose to rob. Not only did she not get anything worthwhile, the murderers are now looking for her! Well done and enjoyable read.

2.5 Stars
This book was a disappointment to me, and also somewhat of a surprise. I am usually a fan of Thomas Perry and I love his Jane Whitefield series. I have also enjoyed several of his standalone books. This book though, just about drove me crazy at times. I will admit that the first quarter of the book had my heart racing, but not always in a good way. Even though he created scenes that built up the suspense, at the same time I was pulled out of the story because the MC made such inane decisions. For someone who was purportedly smart and good at her trade, her decision making skills really left something to be desired.

Then, somewhere around the middle of the book, things just slowed down. It took me a while to figure out what it was that the MC was attempting to accomplish, and eventually, I just wanted the book to be over. Whenever that happens, it is not a good experience for me.

Overall, the book was just not believable. The situations that the MC supposedly is able to pull off are just beyond the realm of belief. (she seriously sneaks into the headquarters of a black ops security company and plants all types of surveillance equipment, not once, but twice...and gets away clean...? And why in the world would she go back into the house of a triple murder to RETURN the camera? Why not just send in the tape if she felt the police should see it? )

These types of decisions are difficult to believe and make the reading experience underwhelming.

Thomas Perry’s The Burglar has the potential to be a great page-turning thriller novel. A young woman breaks into a house and stumbles upon a murder scene, and is hunted throughout the book as she tries to track down the killer or killers. But this young woman isn’t stealing on a dare, for fun or even for the first time – she’s a career burglar. While this creates the perfect opening for her knowledge that allows her to keep ahead of the killers, it also kills the opportunity to create that rising sense of panic and paranoia that makes you keep reading. The story is told from a methodical, detached point of view that never made me feel like the protagonist was in serious danger and took away the excitement that’s created from a sense of vulnerability in many other thriller novels.

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.