Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li – a Review

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Description:
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 who has always been his parents’ American Dream. But when a mysterious Chinese benefactor 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 con artist: Irene Chen, 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 major 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.

Equal parts beautiful, thoughtful, and thrilling, Portrait of a Thief is a cultural heist and an examination of Chinese American identity, as well as a necessary cri­tique of the lingering effects of colonialism.

Review:

Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li is centered on heists of Chinese artifacts that were stolen many years ago, and a group of five college age thieves (all Asian/Americans) who were determined to right a wrong, and give back to the Chinese their artifacts.  

We meet Will Chen, our leader, who while working at night at the Sackler Museum, sees a group stealing Chinese priceless arts; he picks up a valuable piece they dropped.  He then gets a note from one of the Chinese people who stole the artifacts, and the benefactor offers him a job, to steal back five priceless Chinese sculptures, looted from Beijing centuries ago.  Will accepts and recruits 4 friends, each with different abilities to work together; the payout is 50 million dollars (10 million per). We meet the team: Irene Chen, Will’s sister, who is a very good con artist; Daniel Liang, a close friend to both Will and Irene, and the perfect thief; Lily Wu, Irene’s best friend, and the getaway driver; and Alex Huang, friend of Will, and is the hacker/computer expert.

All five of them made a great & complex group, with each being flawed and having different perspectives on life, as well as their hopes and future.  I really enjoyed all the main characters, and it was fun to watch them risk everything to try to steal the sculptures in different countries. The story was exciting during the heist attempts, but without revealing anything to ruin it for you, things will change along the way.  I will say that at times, the story was a bit slow, with some things being redundant.

Portrait of a Thief was an engaging, entertaining and somewhat complex story, that did keep my attention throughout. Portrait of a Thief was well written by Grace D Li, as well as an interesting story line.

Reviewed by Barb

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