Heist Fiction

Butterbean is bored. She and the other pets pulled off a heist once, but that was like a million years ago. Nothing exciting has happened since then. That is, until Mrs. Third Floor shows up at their apartment, convinced there's a ghost in the building. Mrs. Third Floor's rental unit is showing signs of paranormal activity—eerie noises, objects moving when no one is there, fish disappearing from the tank overnight. The pets decide to investigate. Soon they're confronted with a bigger problem than just ghosts: professional ghost hunters who are offering to drive out the spirits for a hefty fee.

Essence® best-selling authors Kiki Swinson and De’nesha Diamond are two rising stars in the world of urban fiction. Heist presents two novellas starring young women hustling their way to the top of the game through daring robbery schemes. In Swinson’s The Ultimate Heist, pampered Shannon Marshall is accustomed to a big-money lifestyle. Her world is shattered, however, when her man is thrown into prison for gun running.

I am a world-class thief. Or I was, before I got pinched and landed in prison. After I served my time, I decided to get on the right side of the law, or as much as my job at Jameson Force Security allows. The lines sometimes blur, which suits me just fine. My name might be Saint, but I’m a devil to most. My plan to go legitimate is going as anticipated, until my past and present collide in a big way. While in Paris preparing to take down a ring of highly specialized thieves, I come face-to-face with my biggest threat - and my most dangerous temptation.

For eight years, Saffron Savage has been stuck on a dilapidated zoo-planet on the outskirts of the galaxy. Her mountains of overdue student loans make it impossible to afford the cost of leaving, and her sleazy coworkers force her to work demoralizing jobs on a daily basis. Desperate to escape, she hatches a scheme that might just be crazy enough to work: steal the zoo's rare, two-headed llama and sell it to the highest bidder.

Linc Jackson and his buddy Rick Weaver thought they'd seen it all on the brutal battlefields of Desert Storm, but found themselves displaced and forgotten men when they came back to the States. Now, a year later, the opportunity of a lifetime suddenly drops in their laps.... That is, if they don't mind tiptoeing on the dark side to make the score. During a freak flood that causes havoc in the downtown business hub of Chicago, Linc and Rick put everything on the line as they execute a heist that they hope will put them on Easy Street for the rest of their lives.

Legends whispered his name in the hushed corridors of New York's underworld. The man who danced through the tightest security, leaving empty vaults in his wake. A heartbreak drove me from the glitzy world of theft, choosing silence over notoriety. Until the Pemberton Diamonds resurfaced, beckoning for one last dance.

Oceans Eight meets Six of Crows in this YA fantasy heist novel about a teenage con artist and her ragtag crew teaming up for their toughest job yet: stealing a soul from the Afterlife. Elle Fields comes from a long line of thieves who specialize in breaking into the Afterlife to steal...

In this high-stakes heist novel, an alchemologist and a con man team up to steal a rare necklace—but complicated feelings of attraction and deception threaten to destroy everything and everyone they love—for fans of Alexandra Bracken and Judy I. Lin. Within the dazzling halls of London’s...

Former federal agent Alexis Parker is tired of death, destruction, and mayhem. She wants to forget her past and focus on the present. She has a new gig guarding a priceless piece of art and a promising future with James Martin, but when she runs into an old friend while working in Paris, her new life comes crashing to an end. Armed thugs, stolen art, and a bag of cash are just the tip of the iceberg. The painting is a fake, and the insurance firm blames Alex for the theft. But the real thief is out there.

He didn’t steal the diamonds, but she definitely stole his heart. A diamond Heist, a romantic encounter, and the possibility of spending the next 20 years in prison. That's one hell of a week.

Hell comes to Southern California every October. It rides in on searing Santa Ana winds that blast at near hurricane force, igniting voracious wildfires. Master thief Danny Cole longs for the flames. A tsunami of fire is exactly what he needs to pull off a daring crime and avenge a fallen friend. As the most devastating firestorms in Los Angeles’ history scorch the hills of Malibu, relentless arson investigator Walter Sharpe and his wild card of a new partner, Andrew Walker, a former US marshal, suspect that someone set the massive blazes intentionally, a terrifying means to an unknown end.

Simi Chopra is on a bad-luck streak. She’s lost yet another job, her student loan debt won’t stop growing, her basement apartment is a certifiable flood zone, and now her best friend has been accused of stealing a multimillion-dollar diamond necklace. To put it lightly, she’s desperate for a break—that’s right when Jack waltzes out of the bushes and into her life.

Charmante Dilettanten: Monsieur Lipaires Gauner-Truppe träumt vom großen Coup an der Côte d'Azur – doch irgendwas geht immer schief. Ein Rätsel, das zum Familienschatz einer südfranzösischen Adelsdynastie führt, versteckt im Kanallabyrinth der malerischen Küstenstadt Port Grimaud? Das klingt zu formidable, um wahr zu sein. Gelegenheitsgauner Guillaume Lipaire sieht endlich seine Chance, schnell an viel Geld zu kommen. Er versammelt ein ungewöhnliches Team um sich, das ihm dabei helfen soll, das Rätsel zu lösen.

Richie Amalfi, who Rebecca sees as a charmer with an indifference to the fine points of the law, seems to know a little too much (or maybe a lot too much) about the people who are not only trying to stop Rebecca's investigation, but to stop her permanently. This only makes her question, even more, exactly who Richie is. But for now, he's the only one helping her in the face of threats to her life.

Before she was a thief, Blair Morgan was an FBI agent...and her corrupt former boss sent her to jail as a scapegoat. Now, she’s got all the evidence needed to take him down. She just needs to steal it first. But when her heist reveals that a master thief has beaten her to the punch, Blair finds her evidence up for sale in a bidding war between her crew, her enemy, and a mysterious figure known only as Fixer. With 10 days until the auction, Blair’s crew must find a way to determine Fixer’s identity and join forces before the man who put her in jail goes free forever.

A city in chaos! The theft of a Confederate memorial plunges a once-sleepy Southern town into a dystopian nightmare. The mayor has unleashed a campaign of terror, tanks are roaming the streets, and gangsters have taken over the schools. Can 14-year-old Ignatius, his brilliant 8-year-old sister Dolly, and their misfit friends solve the mystery and save the day? Gazoon Heist is a darkly funny and thrilling tale about a society on the brink and how children pay the price for adults' ridiculous behavior.

You are offered the getaway of a lifetime on a remote island with a group of strangers. Things have been difficult recently, so you jump at the chance to swim under the summer sun, explore the peaceful woodlands and return to an elegant hotel for a glorious dinner. As the boat pulls into the harbour, you’re surrounded by crystal-clear water and soon you are alone. Just the peace and quiet you were promised. No phone signal, no internet…no way to call for help. But nothing will go wrong in paradise, right?

Lying low on the sun-kissed coast of Portugal is a far cry from twenty-four-hour lockdown in a CIA black-site prison. But even in paradise, Gibson Vaughn is a long way from being home free. With the feds hot on his heels, he and his crew of fellow fugitives know they can’t hide in a sunny beach town forever. And before they go on the run again, their generous host - a wealthy drug smuggler - expects to be paid for his hospitality. And paid double. His price? A nearly impossible operation that Gibson and his gang must pull off to retrieve a king’s ransom in hijacked narcotics.

Sixth-grader Max has it rough between tormentors at school and his sick—ever-worsening—mom at home. But then DZ, a strange, tuxedoed man with one shoe, appears to Max from the future and divulges that Max’s mother’s fate is somehow entwined with that of Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night. It’s suddenly clear to Max that any problems he already had on his plate have just gotten bigger. DZ explains to Max that someone is after The Starry Night...and the thief is not bound by the usual laws of time and space.

Three complete stories in one collection! Includes Monkey Trouble, The Zombie Project, and The Great Turkey Heist.