Pst. Hey, you. C’mere. You look like you’ve got a moral compass that points in whatever direction the money lies. You lookin’ to score some gold? Word on the street is that fantasy books with heists and thieves are hot right now, and being a rogue myself, I consider myself an authority on the subject. Listen, all you gotta do is take this here list of heist fantasy books and pass it along to your criminally minded friends, who will pass it along to their friends, and so on and so forth. No, this ain’t an MLM scheme, it’s a business venture. We’re building um, a book club! A legally ambiguous book club! Membership fee is 50 gold pieces, monthly. So take this list of 10 the best fantasy books with heists and thieves and go collect.
Six of Crows
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo takes place in the city of Ketterdam. It’s loud, dirty, cutthroat, and full of people with money to spend. In short, a thieves’ paradise. It’s also the home of Kaz, a talented street thief who makes a decent living fleecing other people out of theirs. When Kaz is contacted to partake in the heist to end all heists, he’s intrigued. The job? Smuggle an illegal drug manufacturer out of an ice prison – the real world equivalent would be breaking the chemist who made LSD out of Fort Knox. For this job, he’ll need to assemble a high fantasy Ocean’s Eleven team. An Ocean’s Six, comprised of himself and five other dubious characters from all corners of Bardugo’s Grishaverse where the novel takes place. It’s a fast paced thriller that evolves into a story of found family. Six morally challenged coworkers discover their emotional bonds have become harder to pick apart than any lock by journey’s end – heist with heart.
The Lies of Locke Lamora
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch is book one of the Gentleman Bastards series, which, if the title didn’t clue you in, is about a group of rogues as charming as they are devious. This is the story of Locke, the leader of a group of young con-artists that spend their time depriving the wealthy of their less than hard-earned money. As part of a thriving criminal underground, Locke and gang pull off a series of elaborate cons with Paul Newman-esque charm. Their operation runs into hot water when a mysterious new criminal mastermind appears on the scene, who makes their entrance by murdering the competition. Threatened by a newcomer as cunning as they are cruel, Locke and his Bastards will need to outfox their foe before they find themselves hunted to extinction. It’s like a high fantasy Guy Ritchie movie, con artists conning con artists, with lethal con-sequences.
The Final Empire
The gold standard heist fantasy story, Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn: The Final Empire is one of the most celebrated entries in the genre. The novel takes place within the Final Empire, a totalitarian regime ruled by an immortal tyrant who styles himself as “The Lord Ruler.” After a thousand years, he couldn’t come up with a more creative name for himself? Unsurprisingly, the LR has more haters than just me. One of them is Kelsier, the leader of a gang of thieves who are masters of Allomancy – a form of magic that grants users supernatural power when they eat certain metals. With their newest member, a fledgling allomancer and thief named Vin, Kelsier’s gang attempts to pull off the biggest job in all the realm – robbing the Lord Ruler himself.
The Hobbit
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit is a heist fantasy classic – the blueprint, one might say. It’s the story of a bunch of short kings and a wizard’s attempt to fleece a dragon out of stolen gold. Bilbo Baggins wasn’t supposed to be an adventurer, he was supposed to spend his days smoking fine longleaf in his quiet Shire home. When dwarf king Thorin Oakenshield came a-knocking with a quest to burglarize a fire breathing reptile, Bilbo couldn’t resist. Though the novel is far more than just a heist fantasy, a heist lies at the heart of it. If you’re weary of fantasy stories about the morally challenged robbing the morally depraved, you can restore your faith in humanity with this tale. What’s more noble than robbing an evil lizard? Robbing an evil lizard who stole from you first.
The Blacktongue Thief
Christopher Buehlman’s The Blacktongue Thief is the story of one young rogue’s quest to pay off his student loans. That may be an oversimplification, but after being trained by a criminal education center known as The Taker’s Guild, street thief Kinch Na Shannack finds himself in deep financial debt to his tutors. In order to make his dark fantasy loan payments, he decides to use the skills he learned in rogue college. Problem is, he’s still got a lot to learn when it comes to choosing a mark. After attempting to rob a hardened veteran of the goblin wars, Kinch Na Shannack finds his own fate tangled up with his target – and none the richer for it. Well, he’s richer in friends now that he’s met Gavla. Frenemies, really – but she’s not gonna pay his bills.
Foundryside
Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennet is the story of Sancia Grado – a thief with the stickiest fingers in all the land. Confident in her criminal skills, Sancia unknowingly bites off more than she can chew when she accepts a job to filch an artifact out of a dockside warehouse. Little does she know, her shadowy employers have sent her on a quest to steal something of unimaginable magical power – a device capable of reshaping the economic face of the world. That face is not a kind one, Sancia’s world is controlled by powerful merchants, who use magic in order to keep the wheels of capitalism grinding on. This artifact could change everything, so long as it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. If Jeff Bezos and his billionaire buddies used magic to run their businesses, and one young woman stumbled across the power to bankrupt them, you’d have the real world equivalent of this novel.
The Spirit Thief
The first of Rachel Aaron’s The Legend of Eli Monpress series, The Spirit Thief is the tale of (spoiler alert) Eli Monpress – the world’s greatest thief. Okay, maybe not the world’s greatest, but he’s definitely top five. To put him in Dungeons and Dragons terms, he’s a level 20 Rogue that’s also multi-classed as a Wizard – a devious combination of stealth and magic. Like any dungeon delver, he doesn’t travel alone. Accompanied by a swordsman who could give One Piece‘s Rornoa Zora a run for his money and a literal hellspawn with demonic strength, Eli is equipped to pull off some of the greatest heists of his age. What will he steal first? Not gold, not treasures, but the type of person who historically owns both of those things. Eli Monpress is going to steal a king, and with the royal, power itself.
Theft of Swords
Michael J. Sullivan’s Theft of Swords is, in Dungeons and Dragons terms, the story of a small business venture carried out by a Rogue and a Fighter. Sticky fingered Royce Melborn and his heavy handed mercenary partner Hadrian Blackwater are a morally dubious dream team – hired to carry out questionable odd jobs for the highest bidder. After the pair are contracted to steal a famous sword, their business margins take a dip into the red when they find themselves framed for a monarch’s murder in the process. Bound up in a political plot, the pair will need sharp wits and sharp objects in order to cut themselves free. Thankfully, they were born with the one, and there’s plenty of the other lying around.
The Palace Job
Patrick Weekes The Palace Job is the first of the Rogues of The Republic series – which is essentially a high fantasy version of The Guardians of The Galaxy. The plot revolves around Loch – a former scout for the Republic who has returned to its capital city to kill the man who murdered her family. After her solo attempt fails spectacularly, she comes to the conclusion that every rogue does when faced with a tough job – she needs a crew. She finds it in the form of a death priestess, a contortionist monk, a shapeshifting unicorn, a magical talking warhammer, and an unassuming farmer’s kid with the devil’s luck. This whacky smattering of oddballs are exactly the lethal combination that Loch needs to fulfill her quest – and have an interesting time along the way.
Kill Six Billion Demons
Tom Parkinson Morgan’s Kill Six Billion Demons is many things: a progression fantasy manga, a religious text, a sapphic love story, and a chronicle of the end of the world. It also contains one hell of a heist. After business major Allison Ruth and her boyfriend are kidnapped from their college dorm by a runaway god, the pair find themselves transported to the city at the center of the multiverse – a hive of demon thieves, goblin merchants, and angels barely upholding the law. Separated from each other, Allison hears word that her boyfriend is being held in the fractal fortress of a gold hoarding space dragon, and she’ll need a devilish crew to break him out. After hiring a crew of literal devils, the former barista is well equipped for the career change.
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