The Thief Taker
Book Review

The Thief Taker BOOK SYNOPSIS

Agnes is the cook for the Blanchards, a family who specialize in silver. The prize piece of hand carved silver, a wine cooler, is stolen from the showroom and the watchman guarding it is murdered. Mr. Blanchard asks Agnes to indiscreetly look into these acts since she is familiar with all the house servants and they are more likely to trust her. She is not thrilled about this job but as she begins figuring things out she becomes obsessed with finding the cooler and the murderer. During all of this she is also dealing with a misplaced son and a lover who may or may not be on her side.

QUEENIE D SAYS

I love a good mystery, I'm not going to lie. I’ve read A TON of popular mystery books, sometimes even gone through series of 10-20 books when I get into a character (Kay Hooper anyone?)

However, I'm sick and tired of awful, gory, sensational murder scenes. I'm tired of kids being abducted and pregnant women being murdered. I'm tired of serial killers and missing people who are found later on in pieces. Janet Gleeson writes a good, clean "whodunit" mystery set in eighteenth-century London. Don't get me wrong - she is descriptive! But she is descriptive about the food, the characters, the steps they take to try and solve the puzzle. Each chapter ends with a hook to keep you going to the next page. The chapters are short and uncover one more piece of the puzzle. At the end what you have is a solved mystery without all the gore of today's world.

I went on to read 2 more of her books because I was so enthralled with the time period and the good ol' fashioned mystery.

The Thief Taker had Agnes whom I loved. She was simple but smart. Plain but beautiful. Caring but cold. She was so full of polar opposites that you never knew what she was going to do next but underneath it all you also knew she was good and kind. I didn't want her story to be over!

Also props to Gleeson for really making 1750 London come to life. I desperately want to go back and visit the streets all thanks to her vibrant descriptions of the life there. Fantastic!

The Thief Taker DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Who did you think was guilty while you were reading?
2. What do you picture Agnes to look like based on her personality?
3. Of all the candid descriptions of street life in 1750 London, which did you like the best and why?

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