Heist Society (review)

At age fifteen, Kat Bishop is every bit as promising a thief as any of her larcenously talented relatives, but recently she's been trying the straight life at a high-toned boarding school. She's needed back in action, though, to save her father, who has been accused by wealthy thug Arturo Taccone of purloining several pieces of his previously stolen artwork. The elder Bishop is innocent—of this crime, at least—and the only way Kat can save her father from Taccone's revenge is to locate and re-re-steal the paintings from the Henley Museum, which is protected by a state-of-the-art system. If the security system isn't enough challenge, she's confounded by the parallel activities of one Visily Romani, the pseudonym passed along by master thieves over several centuries. Since no teen thief-turned-sleuth is worth her salt without a crack team, Kat enlists a posse of relatives and friends with assets ranging from technical genius to distracting allure, as well as love interest/sidekick W. W. Hale the Fifth, a teen billionaire who's crushed on her since she broke into the family estate some time past. A light-hearted tone and plotting with more twists than a Slinky hustle readers along to the climactic and ingenious break-in scene, the con-within-a-con reveal, and the hint of more adventures to come. The problem of recovering artwork stolen during the Holocaust runs throughout, drawing readers into the dilemma of provenance and ownership, and nudging Kat's band of teen criminals into the camp of the angels.