On a foggy night in Amsterdam, a man falls from a rooftop to the wet pavement below. It's Alfie McQuinn, the notorious cat burglar, and he's dying. As sirens wail in the distance, Alfie manages to get out two last words to his young son, March: "Find jewels."
But March learns that his father is not talking about a stash of loot. He's talking about Jules, the twin sister March never knew he had. No sooner than the two find each other, they're picked up by the police and sent to the world's worst orphanage. It's not prison, but it feels like it.
March and Jules have no intention of staying put. They know their father's business inside and out, and they're tired of being pushed around. Just one good heist, and they'll live the life of riches and freedom most kids only dream about.
Watch out! There are wild kids on the loose and a crime spree coming . . .
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
33 of 36 people found the following review helpful.
A KID'S REVIEW
By CDV
I’m a 4th grader, and I’m going to review the book, Loot: How to Steal A Fortune.This story is about a kid’s dad who fall off a building and is dying, so he tells his son to find jewels. The son figures out that “jewels” is his twin sister, Jules. He finds her and they try to pull off a heist to steal moonstones. They hitch up a team, but there are bad guys who want to steal the moonstones too. The moonstones can tell the future, which I think is exceptionally cool.I thought this book was exciting, but kind of scary in some moments, such as when March keeps seeing this cloaked figure, which scared me a little. But otherwise, it’s a fun, exciting book that I couldn’t put down!! I would recommend this book to kids who like suspenseful and mystery books. The end of each chapter ended in a cliffhanger and there were lots of questions to be answered about Jules and March’s past. —ABrown
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful.A Terrific Caper
By Monica Edinger
I love me a good caper story. Lighter, smarter, funnier, and a lot less gory than many other sorts of crime fiction, done well, they are great fun to read. And when a heist is involved, ideally in some exotic locale, all the better. I'm not an expert by any means, but my favorite of these sorts of stories involve some sort of initiating event and then a super cool and super smart individual assembling and leading a motley crew to steal something from someone who doesn't deserve to have it in the first place. Say the movies, "How to Steal a Million" or "Ocean's Eleven." Now along comes Jude Watson's Loot: How to Steal a Fortune. Her name may not be terribly familiar to you, but what she's written probably is, say a bunch of the 39 Clues books and many (many) Star War titles. But what caused me to snap up and read this title was when I learned that Jude Watson happens to also be Judy Blundell who wrote the fabulous National Book Award winner What I Saw and How I Lied.It starts out darkly with a job gone very, very wrong. We meet almost-thirteen-year-old March McQuinn, who has spent his whole life traveling around with his father, helping him with his cons and heists, mostly homeschooled in a desultory way. Now Alfie McQuinn has fallen off an Amsterdam roof and March is sitting next to him listening to his dying words, "Find jewels." The moonstones, the grieving March assumes, seven otherworldly gems that are the central objects of desire in this novel. But it turns out that his father means something else entirely. It seems March has a twin sister named Jules from whom he has been separated his whole life. She, like March, has had an unconventional upbringing and is equally savvy in the murky world of con artists and thieves. The two soon meet and end up in a dreary American foster home. There they join forces with two other smart young people and head off to solve the mystery of their father's death, get those moonstones, and do a whole lot more that is far too complicated to describe in brief, not to mention potentially spoiling if I do. What I can say is that it is loads of fun.As in the best caper and heist stories, this one is full of snappy dialog, razor-sharp sentences, and clever plotting. The baddies are deliciously nasty and deserve what they get, the kids are endearing, and all in all it is a great edge-of-your seat read.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful.Loot (OMIGOSH)
By Julia N
Whoa.Thank you, NetGalley and Scholastic, for this free title to review!Whoa. That was awesome. Just...gah. So very, very awesome.The writing is taunt and beautiful. It flows poetically, yet March, the narrator, still feels like the twelve year old boy he is. He's mature. You have to be, if you're the son of a well known jewel thief.I love sleep. I really do. But that wasn't exactly a priority when I was reading this. The plot was so fast, so funny, so full of life, that even though I'm not the intended audience (I think Loot is for tween guys or something) I still enjoyed it. C. S. Lewis once said something about the audience doesn't matter as long as the book is good (sorry for butchering that quote.....) and he is totally right.March was a terrific narrator. Sometimes he was hilarious. Sometimes he was heart breaking. All in all, he and the gang are some of my favorite characters now.The one thing I disliked was how March would say "Okay, let's go over the plan again", simply for the reader's sake. Yes, I want to know the plan, but it felt unnatural for him to say that. But would I buy other books by Jude Watson (AKA Judy Blundell)? YES. YESITY YES YES YES.
