Suzanne Mcdonough

No Such Creature: A Novel When thieves rob thieves – Sacramento Book Review – Sacramento, CA
Giles Blunt’s //No Such Creature// introduces us to Magnus “Max” Maxwell and his great-nephew Owen, a pair of gentleman thieves. They travel across the country each summer, robbing wealthy socialites – preferably rich Republicans – at dinner parties. This may be their last trip, though, since Max is starting to have senior moments and Owen wants to study acting at Juilliard. Their first venture – a robbery in the San Francisco Bay area – is successful, but things start to unravel when they reach Las Vegas. A rival gang of thieves plots to relieve them of their loot, an old friend’s daughter becomes dependent on them, and they attract the unwanted attention of a tenacious born-again Christian security guard. Can the Maxwells successfully make it back to Manhattan?

This is an interesting story that moves forward with a good plot. The characters are well developed; perhaps some are too well developed. We spend too much time with Bill Bullard’s religion, and Aunt Rachel and her theory on sex could have been totally dropped from the story. The mood of the ending is not a good fit to the rest of the story. But these criticisms aside, this is still a good book that deserves to be read.

Reviewed by
Douglas McWilliams
:

Silver Dagger winner Giles Blunt delivers an exhilarating game of cat and mouse with a most unlikely—and likeable—pair of thieves

Eight years ago, Owen Maxwell was saved from a foster home by the arrival of his uncle Max from England. Once a promising Shakespearean actor, Magnus “Max” Maxwell has since put his dramatic skills to new use: a master of disguise, a virtuoso of foreign dialects, and a performer to his core, he has become an extremely successful gentleman thief. Every summer, Max and Owen take a road trip across the United States, pulling off elaborate robberies along the way. But this year is different. Their first, dazzlingly executed summer heist captures the interest of the Subtractors.

Long believed an urban myth, the Subtractors are a gang of vicious thieves who prey on other thieves. They will abduct a fellow crook known to have completed a lucrative job and proceed to “subtract” parts of his body until he tells them where they can find the loot. “No such creature,” Max says, when Owen first suspects that they may be in the Subtractors’ sights. But in this, as in so many things, Max will prove to be disastrously wrong.

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