Title: Uncommon Criminals (Heist Society #2)
Author: Ally Carter
Published: June, 2011 by Disney Hyperion
Pages: 298
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Katarina Bishop has worn a lot of labels in her short life. Friend. Niece. Daughter. Thief. But for the last two months she’s simply been known as the girl who ran the crew that robbed the greatest museum in the world. That’s why Kat isn’t surprised when she’s asked to steal the infamous Cleopatra Emerald so it can be returned to its rightful owners.

There are only three problems. First, the gem hasn’t been seen in public in thirty years. Second, since the fall of the Egyptian empire and the suicide of Cleopatra, no one who holds the emerald keeps it for long, and in Kat’s world, history almost always repeats itself. But it’s the third problem that makes Kat’s crew the most nervous and that is simply… the emerald is cursed.

Kat might be in way over her head, but she’s not going down without a fight. After all she has her best friend—the gorgeous Hale—and the rest of her crew with her as they chase the Cleopatra around the globe, dodging curses, realizing that the same tricks and cons her family has used for centuries are useless this time.

Which means, this time, Katarina Bishop is making up her own rules.

Final Thoughts:
This is actually the first sequel I’ve read in years—perhaps ever (is The Odyssey considered the sequel to The Iliad?). It hadn’t been that long since I read Heist Society, and so I was happy to find the second book in the series, Uncommon Criminals, available at the local council library. I still felt the residual itch to jump back into the world of Kat Bishop and her teen-criminal wonder crew, and though it did seem to have a tiny fleck of “sequel-syndrome”, it was still a pleasant read.

Title: Heist Society (Heist Society #1)
Author: Ally Carter
Published: February, 2010, by Disney Hyperion
Pages: 287
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her on a trip to the Louvre…to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria…to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own—scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving “the life” for a normal life proves harder than she’d expected.

Soon, Kat’s friend and former co-conspirator, Hale, appears out of nowhere to bring Kat back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has a good reason: a powerful mobster has been robbed of his priceless art collection and wants to retrieve it. Only a master thief could have pulled this job, and Kat’s father isn’t just on the suspect list, he is the list. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly enemy, Kat’s dad needs her help.

For Kat, there is only one solution: track down the paintings and steal them back. So what if it’s a spectacularly impossible job? She’s got two weeks, a teenage crew, and hopefully just enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in her family’s history–and, with any luck, steal her life back along the way.

Final Thoughts:
Somehow I knew that I would enjoy this book even before I had even picked it up. This hard-cover copy of Ally Carter’s Heist Society had been sitting on Brett’s shelf for quite some time, untouched. And every time I walked by, I saw it in the corner of my eye and said to myself: I really want to read that, some time. And, oh boy, was I satisfied when I did, at last.