Recommend me a caper/heist novel

Cafe Society
1

I love caper movies, which they hardly ever make any more. It dawned on me recently that there must be caper novels out there. Have you read one (or more) that you liked?

I’m talking about movies like Now You See Me, *Ocean’s 11+*n, Inside Man, The Italian Job, Who’s Minding the Mint?, Topkapi, etc.

And I realize that many of those films were based on novels, but I’m looking for more contemporary works.

2

Neuromancer.

3

Not contemporary (it was written in 1971), but The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth is highly recommended. It tends to be categorized as a political thriller, but can certainly qualify as an intricate “caper” novel.

In 1973 it was made into a first-rate movie, starring Edward Fox. (A 1997 “sort of” remake with Bruce Willis and Richard Gere was rather impressively bad.)

4

Two recommendations, neither of which is a completely straight heist novel, but both of which are worth reading:

  1. Donald Westlake’s “Dortmunder” series is wonderful. They’re heist novels, with the twist that the team of heisters are incompetent losers, or idiot savants, or sad sacks, or some combination of the three; and their heists always go hilariously wrong. I read them all about a decade ago and had a blast reading them.
  2. Scott Lynch’s “The Lies of Locke Lamora” is also really fun. The twist here is that the heist takes place in a fantasy setting vaguely reminiscent of Renaissance Venice. At first I was afraid that the main character would Mary Sue his way through the plot, with nothing ever going wrong. I was mistaken.
5

And a heist/caper film you may not know about, but which is for my money one of the best in the genre (it’s a genre I love): Nine Queens. It’s Argentinian and with subtitles and is thoroughly entertaining.

6

Seconded wholeheartedly. And then William Gibson will rope you in to reading all the rest of his stuff.

ETA: Michael Crichton’s The Great Train Robbery.

7

Robert Ludlum’s The Road To Gandolfo, about the kidnapping of the Pope for $400 million in ransom(a buck for every Catholic), is a great humorous caper novel.

8

I want to second both of these. I too found these books phenomenal and loads of fun. Couple of things I’d like to add tho; Two of the Dortmunder books got adapted to the big screen, since you’re interested in movies as well. They’re the Hot Rock with Robert Redford (1972) and the less impressive What’s the Worst That Can Happen? with Martin Lawerence (2001)
Also, Locke Lamora is the first in a series, so there’s more if you like it, but be warned; Lynch goes years and years between publishing books. Like George Martin stretches of time. So, be prepared to wait.

I might also recommend The Good Thief’s Guide… by Chris Ewan. It’s quite fun with lots of dry british humour. Our protagonist is a crime novelist who writes caper novels by day and by night carries out his own criminal enterprises as a gentleman thief.

9

One I liked: Kahawa by Donald Westlake. Not current (it was published in 1981).

Kahawa is the Swahili for coffee. The book is set in 1970’s Africa and it’s about a group of mercenaries who are planning to steal a trainload of coffee inside Uganda during the reign of Idi Amin.

10

The Dortmunder series was begun because of Westlake’s Parker series, written under the name of Richard Stark. They are mostly caper books in which something goes wrong, but they are grim and deadly serious. It got to the point that Westlake couldn’t write them any more. He made them comic instead of grim and they sold even better.

11

The Serge Storms novels by Tim Dorsey. Start with Florida Roadkill and work from there. They fit the genre…sorta. Not heists but Serge’s plans always unfold in an interesting manner. For someone.

12

Green River High by Duncan Kyle. An SAS veteran undertakes to locate the plane that his late father piloted into Borneo. The plane is crammed with a fortune in rubies. It’s tautly-plotted, well-written and features a very interesting female buddy.

13

Forsyth’s “The Dogs of War” was also about a complex scheme in a kind of Mission Impossible sort of way.

14

Seconding the Parker novels by Stark/Westlake. Depending on your definition of “contemporary,” some of them might fit - he published the last one in 2008, 42 years after the first.
A few more things about the series:

  1. They really don’t need to be read in any kind of order. A few books do refer to characters/incidents from earlier ones, but the spoilers will usually be very minor (like “so-and-so died in prison”).
  2. The tone is quite dark because the POV character is pretty much a sociopath. This mellows a bit towards the end of the run. To me, the books are still fresh and slightly shocking because of this anti-hero aspect.
  3. Westlake/Stark liked to experiment, so the Parker novels vary in length and structure. Some focus on planning and execution, while others are after-the-heist novels, where Parker and crew have to deal with stashing the loot, hiding from the fuzz, and dealing with double-crossing accomplices.
15

Jeffrey Archer’s Not A Penny More, Not A Penny Less is a very entertaining caper/heist novel in which a group of people with nothing in common - except their disgust with, and desire for revenge against, the Bernie Madoff type who ripped them all off - comes together for elaborate and sweet revenge.

16

Forsyth’s “Fourth Protocol” opens with a heist, and eventually spends tons of time on the significantly similar process of smuggling contraband from Point A to Point B.

17

Just reading the Rogues of the Republic series. https://www.amazon.com/Palace-Job-Rogues-Republic/dp/1477848207
A high fantasy series with some nice humorous bits. Reminds me of Leverage, the TV show.
Also, the Myth series by Robert Aspirin. A depowered demon and apprentice magician get by on their wits. An older series, but well worth a read, my fav is Little Myth Marker, a shout out to Damon Runyon (sp?).
Runyon’s works are well worth reading, if you never checked his stuff,also. Classics for a reason.

18

Another vote for Westlake’s Dortmunder series. Also, try Dancing Aztecs, by Westlake, involving the smuggling or counterfeiting of Meso-American artifacts. Not a Dortmunder novel, but at one point the whole Dortmunder crew makes a cameo appearance, and is not heard from for the rest of the book.

Another excellent Westlake book involving smuggling Meso-American objects is High Adventure.

19

nm

20

I just re-read the OP (after making the list below) and realize you’re looking for novels, not films. Sorry I can’t help you there. I do recommend the following movies:

Layer Cake. Not exactly a heist movie but a clever crime story with Daniel Craig before he played James Bond.

The Bank Job. Jason Statham, interesting plot.

Flypaper. Two simultaneous unrelated heists in the same place, and while serious enough it has some scenes that are funny as hell.