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Among Thieves
David Hosp
Grand Central Publishing 2010
334 pages
Among Thieves is the latest mystery by attorney David Hosp. In Among Thieves prominent members of Boston’s organized crime community are turning up dead. Central to the story is the 1990 art theft at the Isabella Stewart Museum which included works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Monet, and Degas which are now worth half a billion dollars.
A deliberately staged message reveals the motive for the killings while other clues point out to the involvement of a highly dangerous and deadly IRA faction fuelled by renegade devotees looking for the ways and means to resurrect the cause.
The Isabella Stewart Museum theft was never solved but many believe the Boston mob was involved, hence the murders.
When attorney Scott Finn discovers his latest client may have been involved, his personal and private lives are turned upside down in a dangerous game of cat and mouse. Scott must of course protect the innocent and bring the guilty to justice.
In this gritty new mystery novel, Hosp adeptly paints career killers with ice and their veins and a picture of betrayal and mistrust in the rough, violent world of organized crime that is as good as the works stolen from the museum. His attention to detail captures the emotions and awkwardness of life. Likewise, he richly describes scenes and develops his characters into interesting albeit sometimes highly disturbed human beings. All this makes for a good read.
Where David Hosp’s Among Thieves falters ever so slightly in in the occasional moments of predictability where the reader is one step ahead of the drama, suspects what is coming, and is proven right. At such moments, a greater dose of suspense and complexity would have been more satisfying.
However, redeemed by good writing and an interesting storyline, Among Thieves is definitely worthy of the bookshelf.