The Good Thief's Guide to Berlin

The Good Thief's Guides, Book 5

By: Chris Ewan

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Charlie Howard, part-time writer, part-time thief, has been engaged in a veritable spree of larceny and misappropriation since moving to Berlin. He’s supposed to be working on his next novel. But high rent and a love for thrill-seeking has been hard on his word count.

But Charlie’s larcenous binge is interrupted by the call to duty - on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government. Four embassy employees are suspected of stealing a sensitive item. Charlie is to break into their homes, find the culprit, and recover the stolen property. But there’s a catch. The item is so sensitive, Charlie isn’t told what he’s looking for. Not its size, not its weight, nothing. He’s only told that he’ll recognize it when he sees it.

Charlie has been a successful thief because he follows his own rules, the first being “Don’t get caught.” Well, after he enters the first suspect’s home, he has to add a new rule: “Don’t admire the view.” As Charlie stares across the street, he sees something he really wishes he hadn’t - a woman being murdered. And that’s just for starters. What follows is a wild adventure in the former cauldron of spies.

©2013 Chris Ewan (P)2013 AudioGO

Good Mystery Tarnished By Irritable People

I enjoyed the mystery aspects of this book and all of the red herrings. But I did not enjoy the never-ending crankiness of the main characters. They went from supportive friends in the previous books to increasingly bickering rivals, and the woman whined about everything so many times in this book that I finally grumbled out loud, "Just leave, already." I was also frustrated that there was a very obvious source of information that kept being shoved in our faces in multiple chapters but the irritable main character just kept ignoring it. Interesting mystery? Yes! Enjoyable characters to follow along as they sleuthed it out? Not so much. But I did really like a particularly excentric character who lived in an unusual place!

Love this series.

I’ve enjoyed each book in this series. And now I’ll give you eight more words.

Not One of the typical thief books

In general I like this character in the series, but in this particular book our hero acts like a dick. Seriously, like an ass. And I really hate it when there are stupid plot and dialogue issues. We spend hours listening to trying to find the all important package, which he’s not even opened for the longest time after they get it.

Keeps you guessing.

Another great book in the series. Fantastic narrator! Can't wait for the next one. This was a cliffhanger!

Typical Charlie

This is a good story about the further adventures of Charlie Howard. It was well conceived and written. If you enjoyed the previous books in the series, you will like this one. That said, I hope the author is not going to leave Charlie where he ended up here....another book one of these days?