“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted at Breaking the Spine, which encourages fellow bloggers to spotlight upcoming releases that we’re excited about. However, as Jill is no longer actively posting, from now on I’ll be linking to Can’t Wait Wednesday, hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings, which is a spinoff of the original WoW meme.
Today’s selection and book I’m excitedly awaiting is:
Portrait of a Thief
by Grace D. Li
Adult – Contemporary – Thriller
April 5th 2022
Goodreads
Ocean’s Eleven meets The Farewell in Portrait of a Thief, a lush, lyrical heist novel inspired by the true story of Chinese art vanishing from Western museums, about diaspora, the colonization of art, and the complexity of the Chinese American identity.
History is told by the conquerors. Across the Western world, museums display the spoils of war, of conquest, of colonialism: priceless pieces of art looted from other countries, kept even now.
Will Chen plans to steal them back.
A senior at Harvard, Will fits comfortably in his carefully curated roles: a perfect student, an art history major and sometimes artist, the eldest son that has always been his parents’ American Dream. But when a shadowy Chinese corporation reaches out with an impossible—and illegal—job offer, Will finds himself something else as well: the leader of a heist to steal back five priceless Chinese sculptures, looted from Beijing centuries ago.
His crew is every heist archetype one can imagine—or at least, the closest he can get. A conman: Irene Chen, Will’s sister and a public policy major at Duke, who can talk her way out of anything. A thief: Daniel Liang, a premed student with steady hands just as capable of lockpicking as suturing. A getaway driver: Lily Wu, an engineering student who races cars in her free time. A hacker: Alex Huang, an MIT dropout turned Silicon Valley software engineer. Each member of his crew has their own complicated relationship with China and the identity they’ve cultivated as Chinese Americans, but when Will asks, none of them can turn him down.
Because if they succeed? They earn fifty million dollars—and a chance to make history. But if they fail, it will mean not just the loss of everything they’ve dreamed for themselves but yet another thwarted attempt to take back what colonialism has stolen.
With poetic language, a fun, commercial hook, and a plot that spans the Western world, Portrait of a Thief is both a cultural heist and an examination of the Chinese American identity, as well as a necessary critique of the lingering effects of colonialism that readers won’t want to miss.
I’m not usually into thrillers, but this book has been highly anticipated by a lot of fellow bloggers and the blurb is just undeniably catchy and intriguing. I do love heist stories and the twist about diaspora and the colonization of art sounds amazing so this feels like a must-read.
Tell Me:
Will you be reading this book?
I’m always up for a heist novel! And the whole topic of the colonization of art also really speaks to me as well.
Yes, that’s such a nice focus indeed!
I hadn’t heard of this one before! I like the blurb. I’ll be watching for a review if you end up reading it.
Thanks, I’m definitely curious about this one as it’s not my usual type of read so we’ll see 🙂
This one is new to me but I do enjoy a good heist novel. Thanks for putting it on my radar. 🙂
You’re welcome! Hope it’ll live up to that amazing blurb 🙂