I’ve always enjoyed Ally Carter’s popular spy-boarding-school Gallagher Girls books, not least because they have such awesome titles (I’d Tell You I Love You But Then I’d Have To Kill You, Cross My Heart And Hope To Spy, Don’t Judge A Girl By Her Cover) – they are fun, peppy reads which prioritise girl friendship, spy skillz, loyalty and awesome adventure over boys and romance, though there’s a bit of the latter as well.

Heist Society blows Gallagher Girls out of the water.

The premise is simple: Kat Bishop has been raised in a messy, loving extended family of con artists and thieves. Having made the difficult decision to walk away from them all and set herself up in a ‘normal’ boarding school, she is yanked right back into her old life when her father is framed (or is he?) for an art theft from a Very Bad Man who wants his paintings back, and uses Kat’s love for her father to put pressure on the family.

It’s down to Kat to prove her father’s innocence, or at least steal back the paintings to save his life. When the adults let her down she assembles her own crew – cousins both real and honorary, teen experts in explosives and surveillance, a pickpocket and a millionaire’s son who knows all her secrets. They have two weeks to break one of the best security systems in the world, and the clock is ticking.

I really loved this one. It may be an utter fantasy that a 15 year old could be quite as witty, clever and jaded as Kat, but what a fantasy. The whole thing had a Veronica-Mars-meets-the-Italian-Job vibe that I adored. I love that her crew are mostly second and third generation crooks, and that they have all grown up together – except for Hale, the most mysterious and yet appealing member of the crew, about whom I am hoping to find out a lot more than in the first book! The addition of Gabrielle, Kat’s glamorous cousin, means that the tradition of only having one girl in a caper flick has gone out the window, and thank goodness for it.

The chapters are snappy and short, the writing a bit more experimental and interesting than in Carter’s earlier books, we’re in a different country nearly every day, and every element of a good heist story is there in spades: glamour, grunge, kooky eccentrics, glorious art, in jokes and criminal codes, betrayal, trust issues, and a nice helping of sexual tension. I want more more MORE Heist Society novels right now please.

Tags: ally carter, capers, heist society, reading, reviewing, YA