Heist Society

As a fan of Ally Carter’s Gallagher Girls series, I eagerly read Heist Society. If possible, I actually enjoyed this book more than the series.

Katarina “Kat” Bishop tries to escape the “family business” and experience a normal adolescence by entering a prestigious boarding school. She lasts only a few months before being wrangled back into the fold, this time to save her father who has been accused of stealing five paintings from an unsavory collector.

In order to help her father, Kat gathers together a group of teens with special, if not necessarily legal, skills in order to pull off an impossible heist. Rather than let their age and experience handicap them, the characters use their teen status to their advantage.

Overall, Heist Society is a fun and fast read. Underlying the clever mayhem, though, is a surprisingly serious storyline about stolen artwork and restitution, as well as a hint of pedophilia. I was a bit disappointed that Carter doesn’t dwell more on these truly somber aspects and instead focuses on the fun. And this book is definitely good fun.