The Good Thief’s Guide to Mysteries

Chris Ewan is the author of a series of witty, deftly plotted mysteries all set in different cities, mostly in Europe. The reason his protagonist, the charming Brit Charlie Howard, keeps on the move is because in addition to being a minor novelist, he is primarily a cat burglar and knows better than to stay too long any one location. Ewan gives you a good feel for the places that Charlie visits, and even this sense-of-direction-challenged blogger feels as though she could find her way around these cities after finishing these novels. There are plenty of mystery in-jokes and it's amusing how Charlie is totally flummoxed by the bad luck and dead bodies that follow him around. Still, he is a man of honor, and tries to get justice for the victims while not getting caught.

We meet Charlie Howard in The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam, where someone who knows he's a thief commissions Charlie to steal a plaster monkey figurine, which seems worthless. Charlie initially declines, but he later agrees to satisfy his own curiosity only to discover his employer murdered when he delivers the goods. Charlie soon learns that the monkey is key to a decade-old diamond heist, and things get complicated from there. We also meet Victoria, Charlie's literary agent, who hectors Charlie to finish his novel on time via the telephone, as she has never met him in the flesh.

The Good Thief's Guide to Paris finds our hero slightly sloshed after a successful book reading of his fictionalized memoir at Paris Lights. Agreeing to show a fan how to break into his own apartment, Charlie is surprised to find out aforesaid apartment does not actually belong to his new acquaintance. It gets better: Charlie is commissioned to burgle the same apartment, and its actual owner shows up dead in Charlie's apartment later that day. Victoria is back, this time in person, discussing plot points and structure with Charlie while trying to get him to turn his next book in on time and dealing with the facts that Charlie is a thief and looks nothing like his author photo.

The Good Thief's Guide to Vegas is the sole venture into the Colonies that Charlie has made at the time of this writing. He is hired to steal casino chips from a hotel room, which proves incredibly easy. However, the obnoxious magician he stole them from was cheating at the roulette table and has disappeared. Charlie is suspected of being his accomplice and tough guys will do Very Bad Things to him and Victoria if the magician and all the money he cheated the casino out of do not reappear in a hurry.

Chastened by his experience in Vegas, Charlie has forsworn burglary at the start of The Good Thief's Guide to Venice. Problem is, he has writer's block and even his talismanic first edition of The Maltese Falcon isn't helping. But things go from bad to worse when a curvaceous thief breaks into Charlie's abode and steals the book right in front of him. She then uses it to blackmail him into breaking in and returning a briefcase to a dilapidated palazzo. Sparks fly between Charlie and the sexy female thief, but it's Victoria who saves the day.

In The Good Thief's Guide to Berlin, Charlie has been enjoying himself immensely, stealing things right and left, and has just about worn out his welcome. Unfortunately, he has now brought himself to the attention of Her Majesty's Government, which has need of his skills. Being a patriotic Englishman and having no desire to go to jail, Charlie agrees to break into a series of apartments in one night and find something so sensitive he can't be told what it is but will know it when he finds it. In the process of burgling an apartment, he witnesses a murder in the building opposite and being who he is, Charlie can't let it go. Whatever Charlie has been commissioned to steal, everyone, including a steely American agent and her scarily-driving muscle, is after it. Charlie acknowledges his feelings for Victoria in this installment, replete with violent Russians, Germans living off the grid, and one very obnoxious toucan.