Thieves Like Us

*Thieves Like Us* opens in a grim juvenile detention center in England one night while our 17-year-old hero Jonah tries unsuccessfully to get to sleep. Though the atmosphere has more than a touch of the noir to it, it's a delightful surprise when the action soon takes us to a luxurious alpine getaway in Geneva, then to Cairo, and eventually to Macedonia, formerly known as *Catena Mundi,* or the link between worlds.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Jonah grew up in foster care, but he landed in the slammer for his talents as a "cipherpunk" (don't worry, the moniker makes him cringe, too), which he used to remove money from his last foster dad's bank account. It's lonely in this junior jail, but Jonah has never really had anyone, anyway. That is until a few misfit teenagers not unlike himself break into his cell to spring him, promising a new and better life.

*Thieves Like Us* is such good fun, it's the kind of book that gets you saying things like "landed in the slammer" unselfconsciously, and enjoying yourself doing it. Jonah himself is excited by this late-night action, but at first he's more than a little wary of the strange teenagers who smuggle him out of jail using hypnotism, phosphor caps to stun the guards, and some fancy footwork that outwits the security system. Con is a tall blonde French girl, and she's the one who can put people in a trance. Patch is a skinny 14-year-old with a rough London accent (and an eye patch) who can pick any lock. Motti is the one American in the group, a wisecracking goth who dresses all in black and says *ain't* a lot. His talent is for dismantling sophisticated electrical systems.

This kid crack team has been assembled by a rich, chilly, criminal mastermind named Nathaniel Coldhardt (hee), a high-scale thief who rescued them from their respective bad circumstances. (Tye, the last member of the group, is a lovely Haitian girl who started working as a smuggler when she was just 11. Now she moves the team around the globe in jeeps, luxury cars, and private planes.) Coldhardt gave them each the same choice: they could keep on using their talents for mere survival, or they could work for him and live in the lap of luxury. Now they want Jonah to join their "family."

The name Coldhardt is a bit of camp that could signal corniness ahead, but it doesn't: instead Cole delivers a complex, ingenuous little storyline. In his Bond-esque hideout in Geneva--a 19th-century cloisters he's updated with a hidden elevator and a room full of arcade games--Coldhardt describes his latest high stakes venture. It seems to have something to do with a guy named Imhotep, who lived in the 27th century BC and built the first pyramid in Egypt. It also has to do with an ancient recipe for eternal life --and all the spooky things that suggests.

Jonah's first assignment is to decode the message on a scytale cipher, a stick used by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks for passing along secret messages. When he translates the message using a superfast computer and a bunch of cipher-cracking algorithms he wrote himself, you are guaranteed to get the same geeky thrill he does. As the story unfolds it includes more nerd fun, all very cleverly compiled into a compelling story. Early astrological computations, encrypted messages in ancient Greek and Arabic, even the Peloponnesian wars feature in the team's work, which involves creeping around mansions, Middle Eastern art museums, and crypts in the darkness of night. Indiana Jones never had it so good.

In a subtle way the book raises interesting questions, such as the nature of choice and accountability when you're up against a wall, as Jonah and his new friends are. It also slyly suggests that the Big Brother element might not be the book's most fantastic one, as when Coldhardt throws pictures from Jonah's past up on a wall of monitors. "There's always someone watching," he reminds the boy. More than anything this brainy, fast-paced adventure story is as much fun as any summer movie with a fat budget. Here's hoping there's a sequel.