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Love and Theft

Review

Love and Theft

It has been six years since the publication of Stan Parish’s DOWN THE SHORE, a mixed-genre novel much beloved by everyone who read it. LOVE AND THEFT, his sophomore work, is here at last --- and if he has been lingering over it, his effort certainly shows. This is one of the best novels of the year thus far, worthy of your time, money and undivided attention.

As with DOWN THE SHORE, LOVE AND THEFT blurs genres to great effect. It is part caper novel, part police procedural, part love story (as opposed to romance), and very much a thriller. It begins with a daring --- make that insane --- jewel heist carried out inside a hotel/casino shopping mall in Las Vegas, then makes a two-week jump and a cross-country switcheroo to Princeton, New Jersey.

"Parish’s third-person, present-tense narrative provides an immediacy to the goings-on that will leave readers unable to guess precisely what will happen next until almost the final paragraphs."

Alex Cassidy, the master thief who organized the heist, is attending a gathering in Princeton, where he meets a woman named Diane Alison. Diane is well known and has a very successful party-planning and catering business, while Alex, for obvious reasons, stays off the radar. There is an almost instant attraction between them, which is nearly derailed when they discover that their lives have briefly overlapped in the past. That does not prevent them from taking a holiday in Spain with Diane’s son in tow, just to see if they can explore the mutual though somewhat prickly feeling between them.

Alex is seriously considering quitting his life of crime and retiring on the considerable bank he has accumulated. What he does not know is that a member of his crew in the jewelry theft has turned Judas on him to local and federal authorities in Las Vegas. That problem is going to intersect when a local cartel forces Alex to pull off one last job: the kidnapping of a wealthy Chinese industrialist who is coming to Spain, a task that Alex, who meticulously plans everything, has no time to prepare for. Given that his past sins have come back to haunt him, he has no choice.

The conclusion comes in a series of chain reactions that affect almost everyone involved, and not in a good way. There are twists, turns and surprises galore, with the suspense amped up to 11, and possibly an issue or two is left unresolved at the end. There may be enough characters surviving at that point to be featured in a sequel. While a follow-up certainly would be welcomed, the story is simply terrific on its own.

LOVE AND THEFT will make you want to be a thief when you grow up. It’s that good. Parish’s third-person, present-tense narrative provides an immediacy to the goings-on that will leave readers unable to guess precisely what will happen next until almost the final paragraphs. The bumps and scrapes that Alex and Diane experience along the road of their relationship feel real and provide a nice counterpoint to the action. Hopefully we won’t have to wait another six years for Parish’s next book, though I am sure it will be worth it if we do. For now, we have LOVE AND THEFT to read again. And again.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub on August 7, 2020

Love and Theft
by Stan Parish

  • Publication Date: June 8, 2021
  • Genres: Fiction, Suspense, Thriller
  • Paperback: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Anchor
  • ISBN-10: 1984897462
  • ISBN-13: 9781984897466