Heist Society

Heist Society (2010), a mystery novel for young adults by American author Sarah Leigh Fogleman, writing under the pseudonym, Ally Carter, tells the story of Katarina Bishop, the teenaged scion of a prominent family of high-class thieves who wishes to escape a destiny of larceny. The book is the first of a trilogy that includes 2011's Uncommon Criminals and 2013's Perfect Scoundrels.

At the beginning of the story, Katarina, or "Kat," is a student at Colgan, an expensive boarding school. Despite her family history of thieving, Kat works hard to keep her grades up and her nose clean. Nevertheless, after just three months, someone frames her for driving the headmaster's beloved car into a fountain. She learns that the true culprit—and the architect of her framing—is W.W. Hale V, a handsome sixteen-year-old billionaire and an old friend of Kat's. Hale tries to explain to a justifiably angry Kat his reasons for having her expelled. Kat's father, Bobby Bishop, has been accused of stealing five priceless paintings from a very dangerous underworld boss Arturo Taccone. Hale explains that he was sent by Bobby to enlist Kat's help in clearing her father's name.

Kat manages to gain an audience with Taccone, but the crime lord is unconvinced by Kat's insistence of her father's innocence. The only way, Taccone explains, to save her father is for Kat to track down the five priceless paintings herself and to steal them back. Moreover, Taccone gives Kat a two-week deadline, or else "he won't be the only one to lose something he loves." With the help of Taccone's surveillance tapes and their friend Gabrielle, a young ally of anxiety-inducing beauty and brain-power, the crew of young heist-enthusiasts identifies their prime suspect: Visily Romani.



Visily Romani, it turns out, is not a birth name but rather a "Chelovek Pseudonima," a fake name that only top lieutenants of the criminal underworld are permitted to use. Thieves who reclaim artwork stolen by the Nazis during World War II frequently use this particular pseudonym. Meanwhile, the very mention of the name Visily Romani is enough to strike fear in the heart of Kat's New York-based Uncle Eddie, who advises the teenagers to stop investigating for their own safety. However, this revelation, and particularly her uncle's forbidding tone, only causes Kat's interest in the case to grow.

Their investigation leads Kat to believe that the five paintings are currently being hidden behind five other paintings in the impenetrable fortress that is the Henley Museum, a fictional establishment located in London. Suddenly, Kat is faced with only two choices to keep her father alive: either turn him into the international police (INTERPOL) or undertake the virtually impossible task of robbing the Henley Museum. She chooses the latter.

Kat builds a heist squad that includes Hale and Gabrielle, plus three long-time friends: Simon, Angus, and Hamish. She also brings in a wild card of an ally, an unpredictable but extraordinarily talented pickpocket named Nick. Kat isn't entirely sure she can trust him, but she needs all the help she can get. Because they won't make any money off of the heist, Kat convinces her allies by pitching the ordeal as a way to gain fame and notoriety within the supposedly high-class society that is international thievery.



Relying on state-of-the-art equipment, no small amount of favors, and a mountain of luck, the teens pull off the heist of the century. Unfortunately, they are only able to recover four of the five missing paintings. Making matters worse is the revelation that Nick is, in fact, the son of the INTERPOL agent searching for her father. He positioned Nick to be selected as part of Kat's crew so he could serve as a mole. The agent captures her father, at which time Kat learns that Taccone is not the rightful owner of the paintings. Rather, he tricked Kat into stealing them by threatening her father. Through an elaborate sting operation, INTERPOL captures Tacccone, while the paintings are returned to the families who owned them before the war. Meanwhile, Kat's father is released due to his cooperation with the investigation.

The only loose end is the location of the fifth painting. Kat learns from Abiram Stein, an old family friend, that the fifth painting is called Girl Praying to Saint Nicholas. Kat is shocked to learn that the woman in the painting is her great-great-grandmother. Finally, she learns that her deceased mother had spent her life trying to recover the painting, to no avail. This makes Kat's failure to recover it all the more painful.

However, the book ends with one final twist: Kat receives the fifth painting, Girl Praying to Saint Nicholas, in the mail. Attached to it is a note signed by Visily Romani, setting up the next installment in Carter's book series.