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

Title: The Best Thing You Can Steal

Author: Simon R. Green

Series: Gideon Sable #1

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Rating: 1.5/5 stars


The Review:

As you can tell by my knee-jerk review above, I needed some time and space from this book to assess it in a more mature manner.

Obviously I didn’t enjoy The Best Thing You Can Steal, but I didn’t spend the entire book not liking it. I was actually quite on board at the beginning when the main character was taking a ton of time to assemble his team of thieves. I thought the setup a bit long-winded (instead of hinting at backstories and keeping some details as surprises for later, everyone’s history was laid out and explained extensively), but was willing to ride it out because the book was promising the heist of a century! I love seeing the legwork for stuff like that.

“And we set of with speed for the bright lights of London. A car full of weird with a ghost on top.” <-I loved this quote, and felt really excited to embark with them at the time.

But then the moment arrived. When we finally get to go along with the characters as the do the big things. And I was so, so let down. For me, the main appeal of the novel was the promise of a good heist, and a good heist it was not. First off, the whys behind the heist weren’t convincing as reasons to put everyone at risk. But people do weird things all the time, so that’s a point I overlooked. Secondly, it’s not much fun when there are no challenges and everyone is perfectly prepared for all of the obstacles they’ll face. It’s ideal, of course, but it lacks a certain drama to engage the reader.

And to that point I have a side rant. The team of characters Gideon was assembling for the heist was fun, but one of the members was a woman who had a special ability: computers respond to her and will do anything to please her. How convenient.

It just felt so contrived. Especially since I can’t recall anyone else referencing or having special abilities in the story. So by all accounts, she’s the only one around with “powers” and omgsh how wonderful it is that they happen to be exactly what a thief would need to get past a security system without having to spend any time figuring out how to bypass them organically. All of the other supernatural elements and characters fit, but seeing as this character was already a master of disguise, adding the technology powers in felt like an afterthought. It almost would’ve been better to set up the world without technologies for whatever fabricated reason made sense, and go from there. Rant over.

Finally, the actual thing they found when the heist was complete… was so stupid. I don’t know how else to say it. It made me feel like I’d wasted all the time spend reading the book just to end up where we did. Like, I was promised one thing and delivered something completely different. It actually made me mad, which I’m laughing at now because I don’t usually get that worked up over books. Something about this one must’ve hit a nerve.

Overall, the journey was a bit slow, but the characters were fun and I appreciated the lighthearted heist story I was getting. But taking time to read the endless pages of buildup only to have a very unsatisfying payoff left me feeling resentful. Like I said before, at least it was evoking, if nothing else.

Recommendations: if you’re picking this up because you want a light urban fantasy with some cheeky supernatural characters, this is a good pick. If, like me, you wanted to experience an amazing heist because the Gentleman Bastards series still doesn’t have a release date for the fourth book and you’re getting desperate for that type of story… this one will not make you feel better.

Other books you might like:

by Niki Hawkes