But if they fail, it will mean not just the loss of everything they’ve dreamed for themselves but yet another thwarted attempt to take back what colonialism has stolen. ![]() The heists are as exciting as you can imagine but its the dynamics within the group that keeps the readers attention. Five Chinese students are offered 50 million to steal back rare Chinese artefacts from museums across the world in order for them to be returned to their homeland. Each member of his crew has their own complicated relationship with China and the identity they’ve cultivated as Chinese Americans, but when Will asks, none of them can turn him down.īecause if they succeed? They earn fifty million dollars-and a chance to make history. Portrait of a Thief is a very clever first novel from Grace D. ![]() A hacker: Alex Huang, an MIT dropout turned Silicon Valley software engineer. A getaway driver: Lily Wu, an engineering major who races cars in her free time. A thief: Daniel Liang, a premed student with steady hands just as capable of lockpicking as suturing. A con artist: Irene Chen, a public policy major at Duke who can talk her way out of anything. Li grew up in Pearland, Texas, and is a graduate of Duke University, where she studied biology and creative writing. Portrait of a Thief is a very clever first novel from Grace D. ![]() His crew is every heist archetype one can imagine-or at least, the closest he can get. ![]() But when a mysterious Chinese benefactor reaches out with an impossible-and illegal-job offer, Will finds himself something else as well: the leader of a heist to steal back five priceless Chinese sculptures, looted from Beijing centuries ago. Across the Western world, museums display the spoils of war, of conquest, of colonialism: priceless pieces of art looted from other countries, kept even now.Ī senior at Harvard, Will fits comfortably in his carefully curated roles: a perfect student, an art history major and sometimes artist, the eldest son who has always been his parents’ American Dream.
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