9 of 12 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Weird little story -- great for a plane trip, Sep 24 2009
By Carlye R. Nystrom - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Thief (Paperback)
This is almost like a short story. I read it in about an hour or so. Polly steals things from people as revenge when they do mean things to her. I can't really tell you much more without giving away the entire plot. If you can get a copy of this inexpensively, I'd get it, expecially for a plane trip. A lot of the action takes place on an airplane. I could see this as an Alfred Hitchcock episode, if that gives you any help.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Starts of Well, But the Wussification of Main Character for the Second Half Lets Down This Short Story, April 2 2011
By James N Simpson - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Thief (Paperback)
Rendell's The Thief starts of really, really well. In fact until half way through I was thinking to myself, this is one of the best short stories I've ever read. Polly, the main character as a child and young adult was a brilliantly written strong minded girl, who knew how to handle herself and gave those who deserved it, wether an aunt who humiliates and assaults her for not letting her children come out on top in pool games, a school bully or bad boyfriend, everyone got their comeuppance. Granted it was through stealing stuff but she was a young, you can't expect her to come up with grandeur plans of vengeance. So when she's now in her 20s for the second half of the story and has put her thieving and lying days behind her you'd expect she's still the same strong female character. However when she experiences a bully in the airport, who ends up in the seat beside her on a flight to New York who burns her with hot coffee she doesn't stand up for herself at all. Then the bully is also on the flight back and when a thieving opportunity comes up she takes it. Then the rest of the story instead of fully ensuring this guy gets him comeuppance she instead decides she'll return his possessions to him, including even ironing his clothes, the only problem is she doesn't want her boyfriend to find out. You can predict what the bully is going to do which is exactly what he does. However your just waiting for the brilliant minded Polly from the childhood days to emerge, instead the wussified adult version never lets her make an appearance.
The Thief, is part of the Quick Reads series of books to increase literacy levels by encouraging those who don't like to read beyond magazines and comic books to try fiction through cheap priced short story length fiction and non fiction. The first half of the story would definitely have achieved that, however the weak second half won't encourage much further short story reading.
2 of 5 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
ghost writer??, Feb 28 2010
By Trapper "Lynda Dye Brown" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Thief (Paperback)
Was very disapointed in this comic book novel-save your money and find a copy at a spring yard/garage sale-that's where mine's going-in the bargain bin.