The Burglar

by Thomas Perry

Overview

From the New York Times bestselling author Thomas Perry, “who can be depended upon to deliver high-voltage shocks” (Stephen King), comes a new thriller about an unlikely burglar—a young woman in her 20s—who realizes she must solve a string of murders, or else become the next victim

Elle Stowell is a young woman with an unconventional profession: burglary. But Elle is no petty thief—with just the right combination of smarts, looks, and skills, she can easily stroll through ritzy Bel Air neighborhoods and pick out the perfect home for plucking the most valuable items. This is how Elle has always gotten by—she is good at it, and she thrives on the thrill. But after stumbling upon a grisly triple homicide while stealing from the home of a wealthy art dealer, Elle discovers that she is no longer the only one sneaking around. Somebody is searching for her.

As Elle realizes that her knowledge of the high-profile murder has made her a target, she races to solve the case before becoming the next casualty, using her breaking-and-entering skills to uncover the truth about exactly who the victims were and why someone might have wanted them dead. With high-stakes action and shocking revelations, The Burglar will keep readers on the edge of their seats as they barrel towards the heart-racing conclusion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802148391
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	01/21/2020
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	380,785
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Thomas Perry is the bestselling author of over twenty novels, including the critically acclaimed Jane Whitefield series, Forty Thieves, and The Butcher’s Boy, which won the Edgar Award. He lives in Southern California.

Read an Excerpt

There was esoteric knowledge to being a burglar—broad areas that took some thought and skill. There was choosing the house, entering the house, and finding the items that were worth taking. Elle Stowell was good at all three.

Elle was strong but small, so she couldn’t carry a seven-foot television out of a house if she’d wanted to. It didn’t matter because the real prizes were all small and dense—money, watches, jewelry, gold, guns, and collections—and usually they were to be found in or near the master bedroom suite. Some of the things she found in bedroom hiding places that fit this description were revealing but not for her to take: secret cell phones for calling lovers, second sets of identification, bugout kits, or drugs.

Her small size helped her. She looked like a person who would be out running at dawn in a rich neighborhood, so she didn’t worry people who saw her. There was a certain irony to this, because the same qualities made her a fearsome burglar. She could enter a house in dozens of ways that were impos-sible for a large man. She could easily crawl into a house through a dog door or take the glass slats out of a louvered window and slither inside. Both openings were common and neither was ever wired for an alarm.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Thomas Perry

"Perry…builds suspense with all the subtlety of a master chef nursing a risotto to a buttery perfection. It's nothing new to call Perry a master of the genre, but it's no less true for being widely acknowledged."—Booklist 

“Perry is a master of plotting…Most readers know him from his Jane Whitefield ‘disappeared’ series. His thrillers, of which this is one of the best, are even better.” ―Globe and Mail (Toronto)

“Perry delivers a perfect melding of character and plot, light and dark, and he totally immerses the reader in an irresistible narrative.” —Booklist, “Top 10 Crime Novels of the Year,” on Forty Thieves

“Since his Edgar Award-winning debut novel, The Butcher's Boy . . . Thomas Perry has put together a rewarding string of suspense novels with as much cool competence as some of his best protagonists bring to their work . . . Perry’s a real pro.” —Shelf Awareness, on The Old Man

“Mr. Perry, in this first-rate thriller, proves as cagy as his criminal mastermind: The reader rarely anticipates his next move. He balances breathtaking suspense with romantic intrigue.”―Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal, on The Bomb Maker

From the Publisher

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…If Perry is the king of obsessive strategists (and I so declare him), Elle is his pinup model.

The New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio

10/22/2018
Burglar Elle Stowell, the whip-smart, fearless protagonist of this uneven standalone from Edgar winner Perry (The Bomb Maker), comes from a family of thieves. She approaches every job analytically and is meticulous in her planning. But when she breaks into an L.A. mansion and finds three dead bodies—one male art gallery owner and two affluent married women—naked on a bed in the master bedroom, she becomes the target of a group of professional killers. As the killers’ search for her intensifies and the body count rises, the diminutive burglar must uncover the reason why the gallery owner and women were murdered before she becomes the next casualty. The first part of this tight narrative, which is equal parts mystery and thriller, is virtually un-put-downable. But the story starts to unravel in the second part, when numerous plot holes become apparent. In addition, the weak ending will leave readers less than satisfied. Perry fans will hope for a return to form next time. Agent: Mel Berger, WME. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

08/01/2018
Just nominated for the 2018 Macavity Awards, Perry here introduces us to Elle Stowell, who thrives on stealing from the Bel Air rich and famous. Then she encounters a gruesome triple murder and realizes that she had better find the killer before he finds her.

Library Journal

Narrator Christina Delaine effectively captures the strength, confidence, and smarts of Elle Stowell, the burglar at the center of Perry’s latest audiobook. In the course of her well-planned burglary of a wealthy Los Angeles home, Elle comes upon a brutal murder scene and suddenly finds herself the target of a militaristic security force. She decides that she has to solve the murder and provide incontrovertible proof to the authorities of what’s really going on. Listeners will find themselves cheering for the burglar as she is a relative hero compared to those intent on her demise. Delaine’s tempo and ability to convey Elle’s tension and resolve make for a highly engaging listening experience even when the plot stretches the limits of credulity. E.Q. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2019 - AudioFile

2018-10-02

In case you've forgotten, Perry (The Bomb Maker, 2018, etc.) reminds you that it takes a thief to catch a killer.

Elle Stowell has robbed a lot of houses, but her discovery at the home of retired financial services officer Nick Kavanagh, owner of the Kavanagh Gallery, is a first: the naked corpse of Kavanagh, together with those of socialite Anne Satterthwaite Mannon and Hollywood director's wife Valerie McGee Teason, huddled together in the host's bed, each of them shot in the head. Even more bizarre, a digital movie camera at the crime scene has recorded everything from Kavanagh's original propositioning of the two women to Elle's entrance 12 hours later. What to do? Since "Elle was both good in intention and bad at carrying out good intentions," she neither destroys the memory card nor brings it to the LAPD but anonymously mails them a copy from which she's excised her own image and keeps a copy of the undoctored card herself to prove that she arrived on the scene long after the murders because she thinks that the worst thing that could happen to her is getting arrested. Sure enough, her very next job is interrupted by some people—she's not sure who—she hears walking around the house, and her plan to join a friend on a long-distance vacation till things cool down ends with things considerably heated up. By that time, however, Elle's figured out that the biggest threat to her safety isn't the police but the killer whose handiwork she stumbled on. Instead of trying to solve the murders in order to prove her own innocence, she now has a much more compelling reason to figure out who's got her in their sights: turning them over to the authorities before they can kill her too.

All the relentless drive of Perry's tales of concealment specialist Jane Whitefield (Poison Flower, 2012, etc.) but there's a less compelling logic behind both the burglar's actions and the murderer's.

Kirkus Reviews