If you want a good con/heist novel, this is exactly what you’re looking for. A sleight-of-hand performing magician prodigy and a skilled card cheat meet up to pull off an impossible heist to steal money from a high stakes poker game. Does that not sell it for you?
I found the main character Natalie likeable in that she always seemed just one minor disaster away from rock bottom. She’s broke, her car is a piece of crap, she has no friends, and her pride and temper have caused her to ruin her not-very-lucrative career as a close-up magician. In the opening scene, she seriously injures a volunteer while performing for a group of personal injury lawyers, which is perhaps the worst place to injure a volunteer. It’s a disaster of her own making, and yet you kind of nod and say, “yeah, I can see why she did that.”
She decides that the best way to make money for the inevitable lawsuit is to write an article. (That “write something for pay” is anyone’s go-to for when you need to rustle up cash is quite a bit farfetched, but Imma let it slide.) She meets a card sharp who claims to be one of the best card cheats in the world. He was so completely disagreeable that I almost quit listening after having spent a chapter with him, as I just felt like I’d been on a car trip with an abusive asshole who didn’t shower. Fortunately, the disgusting card sharp doesn’t stay around long, and Natalie hooks up with a new partner in crime.
The strength of the story is that Natalie’s backstory and desperation war with her desire to retain her self-image as a magician who doesn’t break the law. Her relationships with her deceased father and her magician mentor are the source of her code of ethics, so she’s got a real psychological hurdle to overcome when she decides to partner up with the poker cheat to pull off a scam. The tipping point is that one of the people she’s scamming is the man she blames for ruining her father. Another motivation is that the person she’s partnering with is a person she truly admires, and Natalie is starting to realize that the lack of friends she can trust is worse than not having money and a good career. You get the sense that she wants to be friends with her partner almost as much as she wants the money.
So I already liked the character, because of her flaws, and I was rooting for her, so when the scam/heist/con gets set up and it’s as delightfully complicated as you’d expect, I was extra pleased by the tight plotting. This novel adheres to trope in that things go careening off the rails despite the careful preparation in the elaborate plan, thanks to bad luck and betrayal, leaving Natalie to use her wits to win her revenge and reward. I found the ending very satisfying. A very well done story. Heartily recommend.
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