From the bestselling author of the Jane Whitefield series, this new thriller's titular thief is a small young woman in her 20s who must contend with a string of murders she discovers while on the prowl.
As we’ve noted before, Perry writes very well about smart people, whichever side of the law they happen to be on: he shows them thinking, and that process of observing a mind at work, putting together a plan and then improvising on it, proves as compelling as any action scene, although Perry is plenty good at those, too ... Nobody drives a narrative like Perry; sure, he knows how to stomp on the gas pedal and negotiate the curves, but, best of all, he does that while dispensing unfailingly interesting information about stuff we’ve never bothered to think about, which is one more reason we can’t get enough of Perry’s smart people.
The protagonists of Perry’s ingenious thrillers are usually skilled at devising schemes for getting out of awkward situations. Elle uses her wits to break into tight spots, like the headquarters of the shady security firm hunting her down for involving herself in the triple homicide. Elle performs tricky feats here, but her pièces de résistance are the elaborate strategies she engineers to break into that company’s control center. If Perry is the king of obsessive strategists (and I so declare him), Elle is his pinup model.
f you haven’t read Perry, his new book, The Burglar, is a good place to start. It’s a fast-paced, twisty morality tale with a complicated heroine at its center ... Perry is a skillful writer who shows deft flourishes throughout ... The villains are properly loathsome and the smartly plotted tale will teach at least some readers a good deal about art. Moralists may balk at Elle’s complicated principles, but others will finish The Burglar hoping Perry brings her back again.
