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by Karen Odden
She's stolen gems, purses, and hearts—but can she steal her life back from the thieving ring that's claimed it?
Victorian London comes to vivid life in this riveting heist novel about an all-female thieving gang and one young woman's heroic plan to escape a life of crime.
London, 1879: Twenty-year-old Kit Jimeson has fingers so nimble she can nick a necklace off a lady in a crowded theater without raising alarm. Kit and her dodge partner, Mary, are the highest earners in the notorious all-women thieving ring in South London's Elephant and Castle district.
Kit, whose mother had been a thief before her, dreams of a different life, one where she's not constantly on the lookout for constables and plainclothes detectives, and where a mistake or pure bad luck won't land her in the hangman's noose. She has been saving up her earnings so her younger sister, a maid for a wealthy Mayfair family, might have a shot at respectability.
Kit is very close to leaving the life entirely when the legendary former thief Maggie O'Connell brings her plans to a halt. Beautiful, charismatic Maggie has returned to reclaim leadership of the ring after twenty years in a brutal Australian penal colony. But Maggie desires more than mere wealth or power: She longs for revenge against those who sent her away. Kit, with her quick mind and dangerously clever hands, is Maggie's best weapon. If Kit wants to walk away with her life, she must carry out a heist that will demand every skill she possesses.
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (6/18/2026)
Finished An Artful Dodge (Karen Odden) and Mad Mabel (Sally Hepworth). Both were entertaining and fast reads. Good fillers for the moments when I am not reading War and Peace . And now, I just started The First Lady Next Door by Eliza Reid - non-fiction about Iceland's First Lady.
-Gabi_J
"Brilliant...Odden matches vivid details of the hard-knock life in Victorian London with complex backstories for her large cast. Readers will be rapt." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Historical crime fiction at its most authentic." —Kirkus Reviews
"A triumph! The story of one whip-smart young thief's audacious battle for her freedom, integrity, and true love." —Susan Elia MacNeal, New York Times bestselling author of the Maggie Hope series and Mother Daughter Traitor Spy
"Dickens fans—if you ever yearned for Nancy to kick Bill Sykes to the curb and go off thieving with Bet and the Dodger, this is your new favorite book. Vibrant with the authentic sights and sounds of Victorian London, An Artful Dodge is the riveting tale of a gang of female thieves and what one clever dodge artist must do to survive when the gang's old boss returns seeking power—and revenge. A crime novel that centers the power of family bonds both natural and chosen, this thrilling adventure will have you frantically turning the pages." —Mariah Fredericks, author of The Girl in the Green Dress
This information about An Artful Dodge was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Karen Odden received her PhD in Victorian literature from New York University. She is the author of five crime novels set in 1870s London: her USA Today bestselling debut, A Lady in the Smoke; A Dangerous Duet and A Trace of Deceit, both winners of the New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards; Down a Dark River, an Oprah Daily Pick; and Under a Veiled Moon, nominated for the Lefty, Anthony, and Agatha Awards for Best Historical. Karen serves on the national board of Sisters in Crime and is the recipient of a Friends of Scottsdale Library's annual Spirit of Literacy Award for her community outreach. She divides her time between Arizona and Utah, where she loves plotting murder while hiking the desert and mountains.
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