The Fourth Rule by Jeff Lindsay

Published by Dutton on December 5, 2023

Riley Wolfe is insufferably proud of himself for being the world’s best thief. He’s also pleased with his performance as an escape artist and his mastery of parkour. His ego was so irritating in his inaugural novel that I didn’t finish it. I didn’t see the second one, but I tried the third. Jeff Lindsay toned down Riley’s boasting in that one, allowing a reasonably good story to develop.

Riley starts the fourth installment in the series by bragging that he stole the Irish Crown jewels from the Canadian wilderness lair of a collector known only as the Cobra. A couple of months later, while fighting boredom and looking for something new to brag about, he begins to plan the theft of the Rosetta Stone from the British Museum in London.

As he ponders the heist, Riley wanders into an art museum to admire paintings by Otto Dix. He bumps into a woman named Caitlin O’Brian and they make a connection over drinks and dinner before she vanishes. She later shows up at his door, shags him, and pouts a bit before he’s bragging about being the world’s greatest thief. Of course, not talking about thievery with strangers is one of the rules of being the world’s greatest thief, but she shagged him so she’s not really a stranger, right?

Anyway, Caitlin wins Riley’s confidence by stealing the Dix painting that he was admiring. How she does this is never explained and Riley, who can’t get his mind of shagging, neglects to ask. Naturally, he agrees to let her help him steal the Rosetta Stone.

The plan to steal the rock is far from a work of genius and it succeeds only because people at the British Museum are too dense to do their jobs. Frank Delgado, the FBI agent who is Riley’s nemesis, is dispatched to London to help the British police respond to a confidential tip that Riley plans to make off with the Museum’s most treasured possession. When Frank asks folks at the Museum whether anything unusual has happened recently, they fail to connect the most unusual event in their tenure to the planned theft. Riley struck me as being more lucky than smart.

Things go awry after the theft and Riley needs to rescue Caitlan, who has apparently been captured by the Cobra. Riley belatedly tumbles onto a secret and needs to rescue himself. A seasoned crime novel fan will guess the novel’s big surprise long before it arrives. That Riley didn’t recognize the obvious also undercuts his self-promoted reputation as a criminal genius. Maybe he needs to get laid more often so his sex-deprived brain doesn’t ignore warning signs that could not be bigger or brighter.

Setting aside the plot’s eye-rolling lack of credibility and the novel’s annoying protagonist, Lindsay delivers a fast-moving plot with a pleasing series of chases, fights, and escapes. I particularly enjoyed various thrashings of Riley, who quite deserves the punishment. While I am a bigger fan of the third Riley Wolfe novel than the fourth, I can recommend it to fans of action novels.

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Three-Edged Sword by Jeff Lindsay

Published by ‎ Dutton on December 6, 2022

Three-Edged Sword is the third Riley Wolfe novel. I started reading the first one but I was so turned off by Wolfe’s boastfulness that I set the book aside and never got back to it. The second book evaded my radar. By the time I saw this one, I had forgotten about the first one, so I gave it a try. I am pleased to report that Wolfe, while occasionally reminding the reader that he is the best criminal in the history of crime, has toned down his arrogance.

Wolfe’s real name is Wiener. He uses aliases because that’s what thieves do and besides, Wolfe is so much cooler than Wiener. As a successful thief, Wolfe has plenty of money. He needs it to maintain security and to keep his mother’s body breathing, despite her brain death.

As the novel begins, Wolfe’s companion (not quite a girlfriend despite one blissful night together) Monique is in a coma. She was working for Wolfe when she took a blow to the head and Wolfe feels responsible for her welfare. Wolfe knows she will recover because he dictates outcomes. Well, apart from his mother. As much as Wolfe believes he can will it to happen, nobody wakes up from brain death.

While he’s waiting for Monique to awaken, Wolfe attempts to pull a complicated heist involving diamonds in Botswana. The target turns out to be a setup. A CIA agent named Prescott recruits Wolfe to steal a flash drive from a safe at the bottom of a missile silo on a heavily guarded private island. In exchange, Wolfe can keep the Ushakov icons that are stored in the vault. Also, Prescott will release Wolfe’s mother and Monique, who are being held hostage to assure Wolfe’s cooperation.

The plot follows Wolfe as he creates and executes a plan to steal the drive and icons from a fellow who once ran an espionage circuit for the Soviet Union. Wolfe’s plan is reasonably clever and more believable than your typical Mission Impossible plot. Once Wolfe discovers the contents of the drive, he turns his attention to Prescott and to his imprisoned mother and friend.

Three-Edged Sword moves quickly, fueled less by the fights that are typical of thrillers than by the con artistry and parkour that are common to heist stories. Notwithstanding his conceit, Wolfe is a welcome break from the tough guys who dominate crime novels. As he proved in his Dexter novels, Jeff Lindsay can make dark personalities appealing, even if you might not want to befriend his characters. I wasn’t convinced to give Just Watch Me another try, but I’ll look for future entries in the series with the hope that they match the energy of this one.

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