The Whiz Mob and the Grenadine Kid by Colin Meloy, Carson Ellis

He's just a lonely kid in a foreign country trying to amuse himself when another young man visits with him for a bit.  He's having a good chat when the boy tells him to look across the courtyard at the activity there.  When he does, the boy steals his pen.  He still has something in his fingers but it's a twig not a pen...

Balzer & Bray and Edelweiss gave the me the opportunity to read this book for review (thank you).  It will be published October 24th.

I found this very interesting.  The Whiz Mob used their own terms for locations and methods of thieving.  If you got good enough, you could become a cannon and actually do the thefts.  You had people who distracted the marks, learned how to send their attention elsewhere, and learned to steal without notice.  Charlie wants to learn and they take him in.  He has friends for the first time in his life and he likes the adrenaline rush he gets during the operations.  He doesn't realize they aren't really his friends.

When Amir urges him to quit, he thinks he's nuts and continues.  Then he finds out it was a plan to steal a secret cypher from his father.  He can't tell his father what happened, he just has to figure out a way to get it back...

The story is exciting, interesting, and educational in the ways of thieving.  It also shows the very real dangers of it.  There's a glossary at the back of the book to explain the terms.

Charlie, who liked to drink Grenadine, becomes the Grenadine Kid during the story and the efforts he has to make to get the cypher make him use all his talents and more.  This is a well put-together story that had me almost despairing but Charlie came through.  Now he has to figure out how to explain it to his father...