Tony's Reviews > The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam

This is rather reminiscent of the Bernie Rhodenbarr series — the main character/narrator is not only a thief who has to solve the mystery to save his own neck, but is also involved in the world of books (though here as an author, rather than a seller) — but it's neither plotted nor written anywhere near so well, and the "Let's gather everyone together for the dénouement" approach seems much more out of place here.

Although not self-published, this was one of the first novels released by the single-person Long Barn publishing house, and it shows in a lack of attention to detail in the editing phase: from simply using the wrong words (“a kimono that complimented her hair”; “it was a right off”; “heroine-chic”; "a grizzly secret"; “less people”), through to slightly odd plot details (he “drew the few curtains that were still open” to avoid looking suspicious … in Amsterdam; painstakingly working through every combination of four digits to open a lock … as if there were a lot more than 24 different permutations). The quality of production of the ebook is also a little lacking — words that spanned line-breaks in the printed version have ended up with needless hyphenation in the ebook, which is generally distracting and leads to occasional double-takes at things like “the monkey fig-urine”.

That all said, however, it's a quick, light read (though I'm unsure why 4 people have shelved it as “Humour”), with enough signs of promise to ensure I'll probably check out the next in the series at some point whilst eagerly waiting for The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons.