Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li

 Pages: 384

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton 

Released: 12th of April 2022 

This was how things began: Boston on the cusp of fall, the Sackler Museum robbed of 23 pieces of priceless Chinese art. Even in this back room, dust catching the slant of golden, late-afternoon light, Will could hear the sirens. They sounded like a promise.

Will Chen, a Chinese American art history student at Harvard, has spent most of his life learning about the West – its art, its culture, all that it has taken and called its own. He believes art belongs with its creators, so when a Chinese corporation offers him a (highly illegal) chance to reclaim five priceless sculptures, it’s surprisingly easy to say yes.

Will’s crew, fellow students chosen out of his boundless optimism for their skills and loyalty, aren’t exactly experienced criminals. Irene is a public policy major at Duke who can talk her way out of anything; Daniel is pre-med with steady hands and dreams of being a surgeon. Lily is an engineering student who races cars in her spare time; and Will is relying on Alex, an MIT dropout turned software engineer, to hack her way in and out of each museum they must rob.

Each student has their own complicated relationship with China and the identities they’ve cultivated as Chinese Americans, but one thing soon becomes certain: they won’t say no.

Because if they succeed? They earn an unfathomable ten million each, and a chance to make history. If they fail, they lose everything . . . and the West wins again.

What I Have to Say 

This book is not a heist book. It has heists in it, but the focus is on the characters and their relationships and it is written in a contemporary style. I was disappointed by this. I love a good heist book and the fact that it wasn't a thriller threw me off. It's a shame because it tempered my feelings for the whole book. I think if I'd gone into it knowing it was contemporary, I would have liked it more. 

The plot and characters were really interesting though. I liked that it showed five different perspectives and five different ways to be Chinese American, from Daniel, who was born in China and moved to the US when he was young, to Lily who doesn't speak Mandarin and has never been to China before the events of this book. 

I really liked the ending as well. It was the perfect way to close the book and I'm glad the author chose to do it that way. 

In all, I would have preferred a thriller, but it was good despite that. 

(3.5 stars)

My thanks go to Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for providing me with a free copy of this book for review.