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The Thief

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The Thief

Written by: Fuminori Nakamura, Satoko Izumo - translator
Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
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About this listen

The Thief is a seasoned pickpocket. Anonymous in his tailored suit, he weaves in and out of Tokyo crowds, stealing wallets from strangers so smoothly that sometimes he doesn't even remember the snatch. Most people are just a blur to him; nameless faces from whom he chooses his victims. He has no family, no friends, no connections....

But he does have a past, which finally catches up with him when Ishikawa, his first partner, reappears in his life and offers him a job he can't refuse. It's an easy job: tie up an old rich man and steal the contents of a safe. No one gets hurt.

Only the day after the job does he learn that the old man was a prominent politician, and that he was brutally killed after the robbery. And now the Thief is caught in a tangle even he might not be able to escape.

©2009 Fuminori Nakamura; 2012 Satoko Izumo (P)2012 BBC America Crime Thrillers Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological Suspense Thriller & Suspense

Critic Reviews

“I was deeply impressed with The Thief. It is fresh.” (Kenzaburo Oe, Nobel Prize–winning author of A Personal Matter)
“Compulsively readable for its portrait of a dark, crumbling, graffiti-scarred Tokyo—and the desire to understand the mysterious thief.” ( Booklist)
“Disguised as fast-paced, shock-fueled crime fiction, Thief resonates even more as a treatise on contemporary disconnect and paralyzing isolation.... Mystery/crime aficionados with exacting literary standards, as well as readers familiar with already-established-in-translation Japanese writers Miyuki Miyabe ( Shadow Family), Natsuo Kirino ( Out, Grotesque), and Keigo Higashino ( Naoko, The Devotion of Suspect X), will especially enjoy discovering Nakamura.” ( Library Journal)
All stars
Most relevant
A fast-paced, lean and mean thriller that unfortunately never comes together and feels less than the sum of its parts.

Fun but forgettable

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