Book Review
Title: Stealing Greenwich by Brittany Geragotelis (The Infamous Frankie Lorde Book 1)
Genre: Middle Grade, Drama, Family
Rating: 5 Stars
The opening to the novel was interesting as we are introduced to Frankie whose father is one of the most infamous thief in modern history as he is begin caught and arrested which means she is being shipped off to live with her Uncle Scotty, who is also a police officer. The novel is told in journal entries which Frankie has to write for her mandatory therapy since she has been involved with a lot of her father’s heists and she isn’t happy about her current situation. Seeing Frankie meet her uncle for the first time in close to five years was awkward as you can imagine but we can also see how much her father’s lifestyle choices have impacted the way Frankie thinks and acts which isn’t right for a girl of her age. Her uncle Scotty is also shocked to see how much Frankie is like her father and how much he has influenced her and how much work he is going to have to do in order to undo some of the learned behaviours that Frankie has and this is going to be an interesting journey.
As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, Frankie is set ground rules by her uncle that are far different than what she is used to but the thing she is worried about is attending school since she hasn’t really been before. Her uncle Scotty makes it clear that school is non-negotiable and that she has to attend and she is worried about her first day since being the new kid makes her stand out which goes against everything she knows. The second she gets to the school she catches the attention of a boy named Ollie and she does her best to avoid him despite him being nice to her, her first class is pretty easy for her since she has already read most of the books they are going to be studying that year. However, she asks a girl named Annabelle for directions to her next class and Ollie points out she was sending Frankie to the dumpsters and learns that dear old Annie is kind of a bully which is also something that Frankie doesn’t have experience with thanks to her semi-sheltered upbringing and I have a feeling Annie is going to make several appearances throughout the series as a bit of a mean girl.
As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, things begin to get interesting when after school Frankie has to meet her uncle at the courthouse as he has been held up there. During her brief watching of the case she gets a lot of information from the people there, she learns that Mr. Miles is a dodgy landlord evicted tenants from unliveable properties because he can as he refuses to fix the issues with the places and even threatened to deport some of them. Frankie knows that despite the evidence the judge is going to rules in Miles favour and explains to her uncle that the judge is working with Miles and the evidence she spotted for this which her uncle is stunned by. However, when Frankie asks what they are going to do about it and Scott says nothing as that is the way the legal system works she is furious since these people are living is disgusting conditions. I have the feeling that Frankie is going to do something about it by investigating on her own, using her unique skills to find out what Miles is doing and get him convicted for good which is exactly what her father might have done in the same position but definitely not something that Scott will approve of as one of his rules is Frankie can’t do anything illegal.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, Frankie and Ollie are working together as she can’t see a way to continue with her plans without including the admittedly noisy Ollie. Despite this the pair seem to work well together despite Ollie knowing far less about heists than Frankie does and this does show at time. Together they pull a rough plan together, researching Miles’ assets although a lot of it is unknown and just general searching into his background before they decide that some more intense recon is needed to make their plan work especially since Frankie doesn’t know what she is going to steal from him yet or what kind of evidence she might need to look for to help her uncle. Watching Frankie slip back into her element as she puts together disguises and a plan for getting into Miles’ home was nice since it is obviously something she has been missing since her father was arrested and it helps that Ollie finds it fascinating and constantly praises Frankie for her technique. With all this laid out they are now ready to get into Miles’ home and figure out where the vault is, as this is where he supposedly keeps his most valuable items.
As we cross into the second half of the novel, Frankie has come up with the cover of a professional watch cleaning business and she knows from working with her dad that rich people can resist free stuff and it gets them into the house to Ollie’s amazement. Although it is a little unbelievable that someone so young could pull off things like this, it isn’t impossible given the fact she was trained from a young age by her father. Once inside, Frankie leaves Ollie cleaning the watches and on the lookout if anyone comes looking for them while she searches the house. Using her scrambler to keep the cameras temporarily out of action she searches the upper floor with no success and ends up stumbling across Miles’ office which is a reasonable place for his vault to be hidden. However, Miles enters the office forcing Frankie to hide under the desk and once he leaves she finds the vault is beneath the house and can be access through voice identification and fingerprint matching installed inside the desk before rushing back to Ollie. They manage to get away with no issues but now Frankie has to think about what is going to happen next.
As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, Frankie have come up with a plan to get into Miles’ gala since Frankie stole an invitation from his office but there is a lot more work they need to do for the event in less than a week. Frankie begins teaching the basics of how to pickpocket someone and how he will be the key element of that, the distraction. Ollie isn’t pleased with this at first but when he sees Frankie in action and knows how vital the distraction is for the “trick” to work he is much more excited and that only increases when Frankie gives him the job of finding their outfits for the event. They do have a little hiccup when Scott invites Ollie for dinner and Frankie thinks he might slip up but he distracts Scott by asking inappropriate questions about the job eventually forcing Scott out of the house without much effort to Frankie’s surprise and delight. With less than 50 pages left in the novel, I am not sure we are going to see the heist through to its conclusion in this book but I am excited to see how it ends since I have really enjoyed the book so far.
As we cross into the final section of the novel, we get to see the gala and the heist come to its conclusion while I will admit there isn’t as much tension and drama as there would be if this was intended for an older audience it was amazing to read. Frankie and Ollie were an amazing duo to follow and a lot of humour comes from them but we also see some development in Frankie as a character. While she hasn’t left her life of crime behind she has changed from committing the crimes for her own selfish reasons to committing them to help other people, a real Robin Hood. The ending were she sends the footage of Miles’ tampering with the court case to the newspapers and the footage of the stolen art to the police was amazing and even though we don’t see Miles get arrested we can clearly assume he is going to get what he deserves because of Frankie. The synopsis for book two also sounds amazing and I can’t wait to see what kind of adventures Frankie and Ollie get up to in that. This was everything I wanted from a middle grade novel, fast paced, excited and really brought out the child in me.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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