Book Review: The Best Thing You Can Steal by Simon R. Green

A light heist novel without consequences. Gideon Sable puts together a team of unlikely allies to steal from the most ruthless man in London. They all have an ax to bury with Hammer and are willing to risk their lives to hurt him. There’s:
– Annie Anybody who can be anyone she wants to be and influence anything to do as she wishes

-The Ghost, who has been cursed to live unnoticed and forgotten

-The Damned, Lex, who has a one-way ticket to Hell

-Johnny, a mad scientist who has broken the reality

-And Gideon Sable, who is not who he says to be

Then there are all the weird items Hammer has collected, from an immortality drug to a demonic possession ring. All on their list, along with the mother load for which their Patreon is willing to pay the big bucks.

I am trying to determine what to make from The Best Thing You Can Steal. As I have written before, not every book has to have consequences, and light novels for those days when you don’t need anything serious are divine, but I can’t say this one was divine. The writing was okay; it was just what a heist novel should have. The characters were interesting yet stereotypical, sprinkled with supernatural and weird elements. One of my favorite ones was Johnny, who could see the reality as it is, past the shadows on the cave wall. But then there was the plot. It was hollow, its phasing was off, and the actual heist was poorly planned for the great heist it’s advertised to be. What I meant by the phasing being off was the imbalance between putting up the crew and the heist itself. It took over half of the book to assemble the crew, creating tension that was released with a meh plot twist. The heist was done for a stupid reason. Between the setup and the heist, there were two additional scenes that were written there to stall the book. In addition to stalling, they jeopardize the heist but were reasoned as important and sensible things to make the robbery successful. So what I felt was frustration, and not for a good reason.

I’m being unfair to the book with this review because of my frustration. What makes the book beautiful is the friendship it spins around the heist and the liberation of personal faults by belonging to a group and having a sense of meaning. The personal histories of all the characters are tragic, and they deserve the heist and its score to make their existence bearable, making it easy to root for them. The characters and need to know where everything would end up made me keep reading. And I’m happy I finished it because I discovered what the book title insists: the best thing you can steal. Okay, it was obvious with the book’s theme, but sometimes the most obvious things need to be stated aloud, so no one thinks they are the only ones thinking so.

Thank you for reading! Have a beautiful day ❤