About the Book

Elle Stowell is a young woman with an unconventional profession: burglary. But Elle is no petty thief—with just the right combination of smarts, looks, and skills, she can easily stroll through ritzy Bel Air neighborhoods and pick out the perfect home for plucking the most valuable items. This is how Elle has always gotten by—she is good at it, and she thrives on the thrill. But after stumbling upon a grisly triple homicide while stealing from the home of a wealthy art dealer, Elle discovers that she is no longer the only one sneaking around. Somebody is searching for her.

As Elle realizes that her knowledge of the high-profile murder has made her a target, she races to solve the case before becoming the next casualty, using her breaking-and-entering skills to uncover the truth about exactly who the victims were and why someone might have wanted them dead. With high-stakes action and shocking revelations, The Burglar will keep readers on the edge of their seats as they barrel towards the heart-racing conclusion.

Paise for The Burglar

“Formidable . . . Mr. Perry, the author of more than 20 books, tells a story pulsing with suspense and dense with danger: a tale that escalates from a lone burglar to a criminal conspiracy full of double- and triple-crosses.”—Wall Street Journal

“Perry writes very well about smart people, whichever side of the law they happen to be on: he shows them thinking, and that process of observing a mind at work, putting together a plan and then improvising on it, proves as compelling as any action scene, although Perry is plenty good at those, too… Nobody drives a narrative like Perry; sure, he knows how to stomp on the gas pedal and negotiate the curves, but, best of all, he does that while dispensing unfailingly interesting information about stuff we’ve never bothered to think about, which is one more reason we can’t get enough of Perry’s smart people.”—Booklist (starred review)

Praise for Thomas Perry

“Perry…builds suspense with all the subtlety of a master chef nursing a risotto to a buttery perfection. It’s nothing new to call Perry a master of the genre, but it’s no less true for being widely acknowledged.”—Booklist

“Perry is a master of plotting…Most readers know him from his Jane Whitefield ‘disappeared’ series. His thrillers, of which this is one of the best, are even better.” ―Globe and Mail (Toronto)

“Perry delivers a perfect melding of character and plot, light and dark, and he totally immerses the reader in an irresistible narrative.” —Booklist, “Top 10 Crime Novels of the Year,” on Forty Thieves

“Since his Edgar Award-winning debut novel, The Butcher’s Boy . . . Thomas Perry has put together a rewarding string of suspense novels with as much cool competence as some of his best protagonists bring to their work . . . Perry’s a real pro.” —Shelf Awareness, on The Old Man

“Mr. Perry, in this first-rate thriller, proves as cagy as his criminal mastermind: The reader rarely anticipates his next move. He balances breathtaking suspense with romantic intrigue.”―Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal, on The Bomb Maker

Excerpt

There was esoteric knowledge to being a burglar—broad areas that took some thought and skill. There was choosing the house, entering the house, and finding the items that were worth taking. Elle Stowell was good at all three.

Elle was strong but small, so she couldn’t carry a seven-foot television out of a house if she’d wanted to. It didn’t matter because the real prizes were all small and dense—money, watches, jewelry, gold, guns, and collections—and usually they were to be found in or near the master bedroom suite. Some of the things she found in bedroom hiding places that fit this description were revealing but not for her to take: secret cell phones for calling lovers, second sets of identification, bugout kits, or drugs.

Her small size helped her. She looked like a person who would be out running at dawn in a rich neighborhood, so she didn’t worry people who saw her. There was a certain irony to this, because the same qualities made her a fearsome burglar. She could enter a house in dozens of ways that were impos-sible for a large man. She could easily crawl into a house through a dog door or take the glass slats out of a louvered window and slither inside. Both openings were common and neither was ever wired for an alarm.