“The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam” (2007), the second novel in Chris
Evan’s Good Thief series, finds Charlie Howard in Amsterdam trying to work out a flaw in a novel about a thief he is trying to get ready for publication.

But Charlie, a writer, is also a thief, and he is enticed by another thief just out of prison to steal two seemingly worthless monkey figurines. At first he declines the offer, then changes his mind, only to find the other thief has been murdered by someone else who apparently wants those monkeys.

Soon Charlie finds himself a suspect in the murder case, as well as the target of two goons trying to steal the monkeys from him.

Despite the many complications Ewan weaves into his story, the plot never gets too complicated to follow. It remains a joy throughout.

Those who have enjoyed Lawrence Block’s Burglar series of mysteries will probably enjoy these, as well, although Ewan does seem to copy Block’s format a little too closely. Not only is his thief a hero in comparison wuth the worse criminals in the novels, but in both cases the thief has a female confident who is not a girlfriend but just someone to describe his adventures to in a lighthearted way. ( )

I don't remember what I expected from this book, but it certainly wasn't what I got. The plot was all right, with its fair share of twists, but the book, especially towards the end, was incredibly cliched. Example: The ending is purposely ambiguous so as not to prematurely reveal all. He talks about how he calls "this person" or goes on "errands". This is done so he can have a big reveal at the end, which is incredibly cliched and annoying. And his big reveal goes on FOREVER!!! The character keeps going back and changing facts and mentioning things that he conveniently forgot to mention several paragraphs ago. Is it too much to ask for a simple "The butler did it!"?

And I totally called the murderer. It seems that Ewan's work mirrors that of his character (or maybe vice versa) in that you can see the murderer a mile away. There were a few things that threw me for a loop, but the insanely long delivery time was both cliched and boring.

The book wasn't terrible, it was an okay read most of the way through, but it really petered out toward the end in a disappointing and long winded way. ( )

Strongest at the start. I really liked it until the last chunk of dense exposition. I did want the explanations but having everyone standing static in the warehouse ruins for Investigator Revelations was a stodgy choice. I'll try the second one. ( )

Catchy voice. The "detective" is no moralist, neither hard-boiled, streetwise gumshoe.

Charlie Howard is a crime writer with a side gig as a thief. He is employed by an American to steal two out of a set of the Three Wise Monkeys, but now has to prove that he wasn't the one who beat up his employer to the point where he later died of his injuries.

Fun idea spoiled by poor ebook formatting (random hyphenation presumably carried over from where necessary in the print edition) and bad editing (many homophone mistakes). This doesn't convince me that I need to add it to the many series I've got on the go. ( )