Unexpectedly different!

As far as professions go, I would miserably fail at burglar. For one, I am always amazed at the way thieves can think of making profits…some of these things don’t even enter my mind. And secondly, I don’t have a callus and stealth it takes to climb up walls, deal with watch dogs, alarms or the sheer anxiety of it all (Thankfully I don’t have to!). Unlike the main protagonist in this novel!

“L” or Elle, is a professional burglar. Disguised as a runner, she peruses the streets and homes of the rich and famous of Bel Air, CA. Her petite frame let’s her fit in small places and her trained runner and fitness body let’s her easily climb, jump, run, roll and become invisible.

Elle lives on borrowed time, money and goods. She uses cash to rent vehicles all the time, changes her routines constantly and leaves not trace. Her plethora of gadgetry for invisible entries without leaving DNA is abundant. But on one of her outings, she is being taped! Not only taped, but she has walked in on a murder scene of a threesome…all piled up on a bed still in position. A hunch tells her to take the tape, overhaul it at home, make copies of it and return it back to the scene. By now, enforcements are already making it to the scene and Elle barely escapes returning it.

As the murder makes the news, she is heading out of town with some loot of jewelry to bring to the right dealers. Along the way, someone is picking up her trail and Elle’s motives become somewhat changed. She knew that stumbling on the murder scene was bad news, but now she is uncovering that there is a ring of ruthless art dealers behind the crime. As more murders happen in the wake of Elle’s trail, she has to use her skills to investigate and uncover the mystery to alert the officials without being traced herself. A task that only narrowly lets her escape with life in a few sticky situations.

***

This was a fast paced, complex, suspenseful thriller with a different point of view. Very clever and interestingly spun, I enjoyed this view from the burglar side. The Cali vibe was palpable, the plot was twisted and engaging, it surpassed my expectations.
This was my first Thomas Perry novel, and I would definitely read another.

I received a digital copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review. All opinions are my own. Thank you!

More of my reviews can be found here:
https://scarlettreadzandrunz.com/

Elle, a professional thief, is surprised to discover a triple murder in a home that she has broken into. Elle has the presence of mind to steal the camera that is still recording. After she views the footage and cleans her image off, Elle returns the camera to the scene of the crime. Elle manages to escape just before the police discover the crime. Unfortunately, someone else is looking for her. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. This is my honest and voluntarily given review. This is the first book that I read by this author. This is an interesting and suspenseful book. Elle does a lot of research before she breaks into a home, but she is very lucky in not getting discovered. Elle is constantly on the move to keep safe. During the story, Elle realizes that her focus needs to be on solving the crime to stay safe. Elle always manages to stay one step ahead. I really like this book. I found Elle to be a resourceful and sometimes naive heroine. I recommend this book.

This book was VERY interesting and not anything I would have normally picked up for myself. But I thoroughly enjoyed it! I loved the creepy mystery and the many close calls. Definitely a great pick!

Elle Stowell is a young cat burglar who has been brought up in the profession. Her trade brings her into a multiple murder scene that becomes an obsession for her as the murderer comes for her to eliminate a potential witness. The book covers the story of her investigation and her flight from many attempts to kill her. The characters are interesting and all a little offbeat. The style of writing is a little detailed at times, e.g., three pages of street and alley names as she flees from a pursuer. The tale flip-flops between high suspense and plodding through details. The plot is very imaginative, and the motive for the series of murders is murky up to the end. When I finished this book I had the feeling that it was too short, mainly because I wanted more of Elle and her antics.

The premise sounds interesting, but the execution did not resonate with me. A slow read and a struggle to finish. One bright note: the last three pages offer a delightful twist for the reader.

Elle is an experienced burglar but when she happens upon a triple murder scene in one of the houses she has been robbing she finds herself being stalked at every turn.

At around a quarter of the way through ‘The Burglar’ I had to go back to the books page to check on something I had suspected – that the author is male. Elle very much feels like the male fantasy of what the perfect female burglar should be. She’s young, pretty, fit, slim and intelligent and very much knows it. She’s experienced at breaking into people’s houses and seems to know everything and have thought of everything she needs to know. All of this results in what I believe is the reason why so many female reviewers have marked this book down due to having an unrelatable main character. Elle has no personality, no depth or shade - she treats everything in exactly the same way; from going on a date or drinks with friends to discovering a murder scene or taking part in a high-speed car chase. I think the whole book could have been much better written in first person and Elle would have felt a lot more realistic for it.

Although we are constantly told that Elle is a fantastic burglar she makes a lot of ridiculous mistakes, none of which are picked up in the narrative. She visits her own crime scenes multiple times, goes out to her regular bar when she knows she is being stalked by killers and puts an ad up for a car the killers are looking for and goes to visit potential buyers in person – all of which are not very smart moves. She is still making the assumption that the stalkers are police officers far longer than any reasonable person would be despite seeing them kill someone. The burglary side of the story was interesting but very unrealistic. For example, early in the book Elle cracks a safe simply by guessing the combination – although the amount of codes she tried before hand would have either taken her hours or locked her out of most modern safes.

The plot is quite repetitive in places with things being spelled out to the reader over and over again. The ending wasn’t particularly satisfying, you spend the whole book with a slow build of trying to work out what was going on then Elle makes a huge leap and guesses the whole thing from essentially nothing. You then hear the mastermind telling you the entire backstory for the plot towards the end, most of which you would have never been able to guess from any clues you are given earlier in the narrative.

Overall The Burglar is an easy read but with an unrealistic main character and sketchy plot isn’t recommended reading I’m afraid. Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic – Mysterious Press for a copy of the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I liked this book. The title is straightforward -- the main character is a young, female cat burglar -- but I also thought of her as The Accidental Detective. In the course of her illegal activities, Elle Stowell happens onto the scene of a much more serious crime, and sets in motion a treacherous series of events. In order to stay out of trouble herself -- not to mention stay alive -- Elle must puzzle out the crime.

I liked Elle's character. I've never read Thomas Perry's work before, but he deftly handled the psychology of a kid who grew up too soon, on the streets: The portrayal of Elle's hyper-vigilance, her flat affect, her keen resourcefulness, all hit the mark for me. No, she's not your typical suburban-raised, pampered youth. She's been fending for herself half of her life.

I also liked the balance struck by the author between telling, showing and teaching. He conveyed a lot of very technical material (on surveillance, on electronics, on art history) yet kept the story sparking along. When I had to take breaks from reading, I was surprised at how eager I was to get back to the story, to learn who were the highly-trained, dangerously-equipped people pursuing Elle, and why, and just how many of them were out there.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advance reader's copy.

Elle is young and attractive and lives in Los Angeles. You are reminded of this approximately 8 million times. Elle is a burglar. You are reminded of this approximately 8 million times. Elle knows what she's doing. You are also reminded of this approximately 8 million times. Elle changes clothes and cars approximately 8 million times, interspersed with "plot."

Here is the "plot": Elle makes mistakes and gets in trouble. You are reminded of this approximately 8 million times.

The entirety of The Burglar reads like this, which means it takes what feels like 8 million years to get through it.

Thomas Perry has managed to make burglary and murder boring.

I will admit to being drawn to this because of its blurb. A young female burglar stumbles across a murder scene while robbing a house and then someone starts trying to track her down. The problem was that the book didn’t come across as believable. The burglaries at the beginning don’t come across as doable. Time issues seem to be very fluid.

Initially, Elle seems incredibly dense and slow on the uptake. Flip side, we’re expected to believe her luck is just incredibly good. I found it hard to engage with her character. The book is told from her POV until near the end when it flips to third person and takes us from scene to scene. This made it seem disjointed but was necessary to give the reader a way to pull it all together.

It’s a fast paced book and doesn’t lack for twists and turns. For those just looking for an easy to take mystery, this one should do the trick. But I prefer something with a little more meat. And something way more believable.

My thanks to netgalley and Grove Atlantic for an advance copy of this book.

The Burglar by Thomas Perry was a fast read for me and in the beginning I was hooked. Sadly it did not continue for the whole book. I was intrigued by the premise of a young female burglar in LA but felt that it went slightly off in the middle and end. The ending was so full of art jargon that I lost interest quickly. Also Elle came across as very cold which was disappointing.

Elle is a young woman with an unlikely profession... she stakes out the rich and famous homes in LA and breaks in. She has made a good living out of this until one night she breaks in and finds 3 dead bodies, and a video camera running. Now she is being watched and followed.

Thanks to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for my advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own and are in no way biased

I really enjoyed this book, but I admit it's a rather strange one. The title "burglar" is Elle, who has been on her own almost since she can remember - surviving by becoming adept at the ins and outs of theft (more to the point, how to get in and get out without getting caught). By now, she's got it down to a science; her powers of observation and tricks of the trade at times nearly obliterating the line of credibility. And then, she enters a house looking for goodies, finds three murder victims in an upstairs bedroom, and life as she knows it goes belly up.

The strange part, I guess, comes because the entire book is done in a matter-of-fact, narration style with very little dialogue. It's certainly not uninteresting - in fact, it's quite easy to read and entertaining enough that I was reluctant to put it down. But neither can I call it thrilling; most of the way through, it felt more like I was reading an instruction sheet on how to commit burglary than a murder mystery. Not a bad thing, mind you - as I said, I quite enjoyed the reading experience and thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy. But on the other hand, at no time did I get close to the edge of my seat.

Elle's discovery of those aforementioned bodies was accompanied by discovery that the murders (and a few more tawdry moments involving the two woman and a man) were caught on a camcorder. Always striving to stay ahead of whatever game with which she's not already well acquainted, she quickly surmises that what's on the tape might be valuable to the police. So, she steals the camera and makes copies of what's on it - minus, of course, any hint that she was ever involved (or so she thinks) - and re-burglarizes the place to return the camera for the police to find. If nothing else, she's a burglar with a conscience; she's never stolen more than she needs nor harmed anyone and insists that she never will.

That assumption is challenged, though, when Elle learns that not only do some very nasty characters know she was there, they're intent on tracking her down and, most likely, subjecting her to the same fate as the victims she found. That notion really hits home when someone she cares for is put down for the count (keep in mind that she's a loner who doesn't care for much of anybody, so this is a major milestone).

So it is that she decides to investigate on her own in hopes of finding out who committed the murders that got the whole ball rolling and, more important, why. That not only puts her in an unfamiliar world of shady fine art deals, upper-crust snobs with whom her only connection is the goodies she's stolen from people like them in the past and those who will stop at nothing - including killing her - to make sure their own illicit plans don't go awry. In the end, perhaps the real question is, who's the better burglar? Read and find out!

This was the first time I read anything by this author, and probably my last. The description of the book sounded similar to books I have enjoyed, but this one was not to my liking. The story started out intriguing enough to keep me reading, but quickly got bogged down in too much detail. The descriptions of the artists and their paintings were much too detailed and not necessary to move the story along. This minute detail made it difficult to follow the sequence of events which were so important to understand what Elle was doing. There were many passages that seemed too improbable to be realistic and therefore detracted from the possibility of this becoming a book with staying power – one that you think about long after you have finished reading. When Elle went into David’s house to snoop for evidence that he may have been the killer of the three people found dead, she ‘…moved to the master suite Elle had doubts. David might be somewhere with his kids, but there was no guarantee that he hadn’t left them with relatives and stayed here by himself.’ That passage alone was incredulous to me and diminished the integrity of the story. Elle’s actions in the Nemesis warehouse were so convoluted, it was difficult to follow, let alone be believable. Hiding under an open bench was not plausible and turned the story into a satire of spy techniques. I read to the end, hoping for a great ending, but it ended as if the author reached his writing deadline and needed to finish it. It left me hanging, and having to go back to figure out who Denny was – a character who was mentioned only in one passage towards the beginning of the book.

I chose to read this book because the protagonist is a young woman, Elle, whose profession is burglary. I think this is an odd profession for a female and I was intrigued. The story really takes off when Elle is in the midst of burglarizing a house and finds three dead bodies who were killed while having sex - two women and a man.

Some parts of this book were really pretty good and others were just too matter-of-fact. I didn't really connect with Elle. Overall I mostly enjoyed it and found the plot interesting. I think the character Elle has promise and could star in a series, but needs more emotion-provoking charisma.

Thanks to Thomas Perry and Grove Atlantic / Mysterious Press through Netgalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book was a bit of a breath of fresh air. Most books in this genre have similar premises, with alternating character viewpoints, and likely the word Girl or Wife in the title. Don't get me wrong, I am a sucker for those books, but it was nice to have something different to mix it up.

Likely, there are people who behave this way to make a living, but to me it seemed a BIT unbelievable. The main character is a burglar that encounters a crime while committing a crime of her own.

She gets sucked into a wild ride, and I really enjoyed it.

I would read another book from this author!

I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I'm going with 2.5 stars, rounded up. There were a few parts of this story I found really engaging: a strong female, independent, circle of interesting, like-minded friends (thieves).

Most parts seemed like I was reading a how-to manual for a do it yourself MacGyver character. I never felt overly attached to our heroine. Her emotions were mostly flat, even when a rational person would have been grieving and tormented, she seemed detached from everyone.

Overall it was a decent story, but not one I would recommend.

Thanks to NetGalley and publishers for this e-book in exchange for an honest review.

Elle Stowell is a burglar. But when she broke into a house and found three bodies in the bedroom with a camera, she did what any thief would do. She stole the camera and removed footage of her and replaced the camera. But then she had people hunting for her. Her house was broken into, folks were visiting her favorite bar, and a friend was murdered. So Elle had to up her game and figure out what she had stumbled into and how to get out alive while getting revenge. The plot is simple, but the fun is always in the details that Thomas Perry supplies. A gripping book with almost too simple a twist to the ending.

Thanks Netgalley for the opportunity to read this title.

Very different, very good

I have been a Thomas Perry fan since "The Old Man" in 2016. Thomas Perry is a thoughtful creative writer who gives us a different story with a different feel each time.

"The Burglar" is a third person story of Elle, a young woman who is a burglar. Mr. Perry's sources of information are excellent and we learn a lot of technical details about burglary. We also learn the logic of a life of crime through Elle's filter.

The writing is even in tone and rhythm, which won't appeal to some readers who want a thriller to be thrilling. I read straight through.

Quite enjoyed reading this book. Thomas Perry is a great author of mysteries. I’m glad the main character got out unscathed.

The Burglar was my first read by Author Thomas Perry. The premise of this book was wonderful. I mean imagine being a burglar and walking in on a crime scene in the home that you were robbing. Craziness! That alone piqued my interest and I knew this was a book that I needed to read.

I won't get too much into the rest of the plot but I will say that this was a suspenseful thriller. I look forward to reading more from Mr. Perry in the future.

I received a digital ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange of an honest review.

Our protagonist is Elle, a twenty-four-year-old Californian that is also a professional burglar. She was raised by relatives that ditched her when she was barely grown, and so she makes her living taking jewelry from rich people’s houses. They in turn will file the loss with their insurance companies, so no harm, no foul. She is on one such expedition when she comes across three murdered people that were apparently killed while they were having a three-way on the homeowner’s bed. Worse: there’s at least one camera involved. It might provide the identity of the killer, but then it might provide her identity as well. What’s a girl to do?

In the real world, the answer would be simple: you were never there. Destroy the camera, go through the wallets for any cash, then get gone fast. Elle has no police record, so even if she wasn’t gloved up, her prints wouldn’t matter, nor would her DNA. Just go.

But that wouldn’t make for an interesting story, now would it?

Elle decides to make sure that the cops get the camera, but without her identity on it. This adds a twist, requiring her to break in again in order to return the camera once she’s looked at it and done the other things she needs to do, but in the midst of all this she is being stalked by a mysterious black SUV. In time it becomes clear that someone associated with the house, and likely associated with the murders, wants to kill her. In order to stay alive without going to jail, she must learn the killer’s identity and get the proof to the cops, again without being implicated herself.

There are a number of places here where I stop, roll my eyes and say, No way. For one thing, Elle owns her own house. How does an orphaned 24-year-old afford a Los Angeles home? I could easily see her squatting in a house that’s for sale, or even inheriting a house from a dead relative after her other family members scarper out of the area, but to have purchased real estate by age 24? No no no no. How does a young woman like that even have a credit history? It defies common sense. In addition, Elle has a vast amount of knowledge in many different areas despite her lack of formal education. How does a 24-year-old know about the history of architecture in Southern California, just for one example?

But here’s the interesting thing. Despite all of these inconsistencies, I wanted to keep reading. I usually have somewhere between four and ten books going at a time, in various locations and on various devices, and this was not the only good book I was reading at the time; yet when it was time to kick back and read, this one is the one I most wanted to read. And this has never happened to me before. Usually a book with so many holes in the plot and in the construction of the protagonist either causes me to abandon the title or more frequently, plod through it simmering with resentment because I have committed myself to writing a fair review. But not here. With Perry’s book, while part of my brain is tallying the impossible aspects of the novel, the other part of my brain asks, “So what happens next?”

The simple truth is that despite everything, Thomas Perry is a master of suspense. This is what keeps me coming back to him, every stinking time. There’s nobody that writes taut, fast-paced novels of suspense the way this guy does, and so come what may, I had to finish this novel, not out of obligation but for myself, and for the same reason, I will come back to read him again, again, and again