Thieves! Cons! Blackmail! w/ Bestselling Authors Karen Odden & Cara Black

Victorian London comes to vivid life in this riveting heist novel about an all-female thieving gang and one young woman’s heroic plan to escape a life of crime, from Karen Odden, the USA Today bestselling author of Down a Dark River.

Best Bookstore in Union Square is thrilled to celebrate our newest staff favorite from Karen Odden. She'll be live at the store to discuss her latest mystery novel An Artful Dodge with fellow bestselling author Cara Black (author of the Aimee Leduc mysteries).

The event is free to attend, but RSVPs are encouraged so we can accomodate everyone.

(Books will also be available for purchase at the event)

About the Book:

She’s stolen gems, purses, and hearts—but can she steal her life back from the ring of thieves that’s claimed it?

London, 1879: Twenty-year-old Kit Jimeson has fingers so nimble she can nick a necklace off a lady in a crowded theater without raising alarm. Kit and her dodge partner, Mary, are the highest earners in the notorious all-women thieving ring in South London’s Elephant and Castle district.

Kit, whose mother had been a thief before her, dreams of a different life, one where she’s not constantly on the lookout for constables and plainclothes detectives, and where a mistake or pure bad luck won’t land her in the hangman’s noose. She has been saving her earnings so her younger sister, a maid for a wealthy Mayfair family, might have a shot at respectability.

Kit is very close to leaving the life entirely when the legendary former thief Maggie O’Connell brings her plans to a halt. Beautiful, charismatic Maggie has returned to reclaim leadership of the ring after twenty years in a brutal Australian penal colony. But Maggie desires more than mere wealth or power: She longs for revenge against those who sent her away. Kit, with her quick mind and dangerously clever hands, is Maggie’s best weapon. If Kit wants to walk away with her life, she must carry out a heist that will demand every skill she possesses.

About the Speakers:

Karen Odden received her PhD in English from New York University and taught Victorian literature at UW-Milwaukee. She is the author of five crime novels set in 1870s London, including her award-winning USA Today bestselling debut, A Lady in the Smoke. Her work has been nominated for the Lefty, Anthony, Agatha, and Derringer Awards, and appeared in Best Mystery Stories of the Year. A transplant from New York, Karen lives in Arizona with her family. Find her online at www.karenodden.com.

Cara Black is the author of twenty-one books in the New York Times bestselling Aimée Leduc series as well as the WWII thrillers Three Hours in Paris and Night Flight to Paris. She has won the Médaille de la Ville de Paris and the Médaille d'Or du Rayonnement Culturel and received multiple nominations for the Anthony and Macavity Awards; her books have been translated into German, Norwegian, Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew.

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