"A remarkably assured debut" Sunday Times "This is as much a novel as a reckoning ." New York
Times The characters are alluring and ... engaging . So too are the emotional struggles the
crew endure as they try to balance duty to family with their love for China and the need to
understand their own personalities." Literary Review "This is the heist novel we deserve.
Brilliantly twisty and yet so contemplative [...] this book will continue to haunt you long
after you've reached the end." -Jesse Q. Sutanto author of Dial A for Aunties "Portrait of
a Thief was everything I imagined and more. The writing felt close and intimate and the
characters felt like portraits themselves bursting with life and delicately human." -Morgan
Rogers author of Honey Girl "Grace D. Li is a virtuosic storyteller [...] the most exciting
debut I've read this year [...] an intelligent page-turner that will keep you hooked until the
very end." -Lauren Wilkinson New York Times bestselling author of American Spy "In this
slick dazzling debut the stakes are high and the writing elegant. Here's a story that
offers not just adventure or a reprieve from the everyday but big dreams big hearts enduring
friendships and the multitudes of identities that can exist within each one of us." -Weike
Wang author of Chemistry "A beautiful examination of identity as children of the diaspora
[...] This fast-paced heist leaves you clutching the pages and rooting for the thieves."
-Roselle Lim author of Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune " A lyrical and action-packed
tale of yearning connection self-discovery and righting wrongs Portrait of a Thief is a
unique vision of what it means to come home ." -Delilah S. Dawson New York Times bestselling
author of The Violence
___________________________________________________________________________________ This was
how things began: Boston on the cusp of fall the Sackler Museum robbed of 23 pieces of
priceless Chinese art. Even in this back room dust catching the slant of golden
late-afternoon light Will could hear the sirens. They sounded like a promise. Will Chen a
Chinese American art history student at Harvard has spent most of his life learning about the
West - its art its culture all that it has taken and called its own. He believes art belongs
with its creators so when a Chinese corporation offers him a (highly illegal) chance to
reclaim five priceless sculptures it's surprisingly easy to say yes. Will's crew fellow
students chosen out of his boundless optimism for their skills and loyalty aren't exactly
experienced criminals. Irene is a public policy major at Duke who can talk her way out of
anything Daniel is pre-med with steady hands and dreams of being a surgeon. Lily is an
engineering student who races cars in her spare time and Will is relying on Alex an MIT
dropout turned software engineer to hack her way in and out of each museum they must rob.
Each student has their own complicated relationship with China and the identities they've
cultivated as Chinese Americans but one thing soon becomes certain: they won't say no.
Because if they succeed? They earn an unfathomable ten million each and a chance to make
history. If they fail they lose everything . . . and the West wins again.
