Red Notice and the Art of the Heist
Netflix’s Red Notice has become a huge sensation, taking audiences by storm and solidifying the popular streaming service as the future of moviemaking almost overnight. In this blockbuster-style film, an FBI profiler and an art theft played by Ryan Reynolds and Dwyane Johansen, plot the ultimate heist to catch an elusive criminal who always seems to be one step ahead of them. The popularity of this movie, a tried and true trope paired with good-timed comic relief, maybe a surprise to some but we crime fiction lovers have always known the art of the heist is almost too tempting to resist. From high-profile heists, only the best detectives can solve to master art thieves from historical literature, the art of the heist is all about wits, timing, and a crew that is willing to do anything to complete the mission. If you loved the thrills and adventure in Red Notice, we’ve got five heist and heist-adjacent books you’ll want to pick up. At their center is the mission, but more than that these heist books pair unforgettable characters with a masterful knowledge of how to commit the perfect crime. After all, heists are an artform all their own.
An orphan’s life is harsh—and often short—in the mysterious island city of Camorr. But young Locke Lamora dodges death and slavery, becoming a thief under the tutelage of a gifted con artist. As leader of the band of light-fingered brothers known as the Gentleman Bastards, Locke is soon infamous, fooling even the underworld’s most feared ruler. But in the shadows lurks someone still more ambitious and deadly. Faced with a bloody coup that threatens to destroy everyone and everything that holds meaning in his mercenary life, Locke vows to beat the enemy at his own brutal game—or die trying.
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A husband, a father, a son, a business owner…And the best getaway driver east of the Mississippi.
Beauregard “Bug” Montage is an honest mechanic, a loving husband, and a hard-working dad. Bug knows there’s no future in the man he used to be: known from the hills of North Carolina to the beaches of Florida as the best wheelman on the East Coast.
He thought he'd left all that behind him, but as his carefully built new life begins to crumble, he finds himself drawn inexorably back into a world of blood and bullets. When a smooth-talking former associate comes calling with a can't-miss jewelry store heist, Bug feels he has no choice but to get back in the driver's seat. And Bug is at his best where the scent of gasoline mixes with the smell of fear.
Haunted by the ghost of who he used to be and the father who disappeared when he needed him most, Bug must find a way to navigate this blacktop wasteland...or die trying.
In L.A. Cassie Black is another beautiful woman in a Porsche: except Cassie just did six years in prison and still has "outlaw juice" flowing in her veins. Now Cassie is returning to her old profession, taking down a money man in Vegas. But the perfect heist goes very wrong, and suddenly Cassie is on the run—with a near-psychotic Vegas "fixer" killing everyone who knew about the job. Between Cassie and the man hunting her are a few last secrets: like who really set up the job, why Cassie had to take the change, and how, in the end, it might all be a matter of the moon...
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Marked by tragedy, traumatized at the age of eight, Michael, now eighteen, is no ordinary young man. Besides not uttering a single word in ten years, he discovers the one thing he can somehow do better than anyone else. Whether it's a locked door without a key, a padlock with no combination, or even an eight-hundred pound safe ... he can open them all.
It's an unforgivable talent. A talent that will make young Michael a hot commodity with the wrong people and, whether he likes it or not, push him ever close to a life of crime. Until he finally sees his chance to escape, and with one desperate gamble risks everything to come back home to the only person he ever loved, and to unlock the secret that has kept him silent for so long.
We'd be remiss not to mention Win by Harlan Coben. While not exactly a heist novel, you can expect thievery, adventure, and more than enough danger to keep you on your toes:
Over twenty years ago, the heiress Patricia Lockwood was abducted during a robbery of her family's estate, then locked inside an isolated cabin for months. Patricia escaped, but so did her captors—and the items stolen from her family were never recovered.
Until now. On the Upper West Side, a recluse is found murdered in his penthouse apartment, alongside two objects of note: a stolen Vermeer painting and a leather suitcase bearing the initials WHL3. For the first time in years, the authorities have a lead—not only on Patricia's kidnapping, but also on another FBI cold case—with the suitcase and painting both pointing them toward one man.
Windsor Horne Lockwood III—or Win, as his few friends call him—doesn't know how his suitcase and his family's stolen painting ended up with a dead man. But his interest is piqued, especially when the FBI tells him that the man who kidnapped his cousin was also behind an act of domestic terrorism—and that the conspirators may still be at large. The two cases have baffled the FBI for decades, but Win has three things the FBI doesn't: a personal connection to the case; an ungodly fortune; and his own unique brand of justice.
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