Thieving Weasels by Billy Taylor (review)

Around the ripe old age of fourteen, Skip O’Rourke saw a way to ditch the criminal lifestyle of his entire extended family, clearing $100,000 out of Grandpa Patsy’s storage locker and enrolling in Wheaton Academy under the name Cam Smith. Conning his way into Wheaton was easier than shaking the family off his tail, but now nearing the end of high school, with a Princeton scholarship in the bag and a well-heeled girlfriend on his arm, he’s just a breath away from permanent freedom. At least he was until Uncle Wonderful showed up at his dorm, with news of Skip’s mom’s psychiatric hospitalization and a plan for a major con, in which the family insists Skip participate. It’s a convoluted idea involving money paid for a hit they have no intention of actually making, and if Skip doesn’t play along, the folks will blow his cover. With the complete roster of relatives confirmed liars and conmen, and the possibility that they know or suspect Skip had robbed the family coffers, our hero is backed into a dangerous corner: “If there was one thing I’d learned … it’s that if you’re not 100 percent sure who the mark is, then the mark is probably you.” By the time Skip is ready to face that fear, he’s already on the verge of being framed for an assassination. Although the bad guys sport an air of Hollywood cinema that takes a bit of the edge off their villainy, the plot against Skip is clever enough and the stakes are high enough (yes, he really wants quit of this clan) to make the tension authentic. Don’t be deceived by the jokey prison jumpsuit cover: life with the O’Rourkes is no laughing matter.