From Publishers Weekly
Along with her British compatriots Peter Dickinson, Nina Bawden and Gillian Cross, Alcock writes some of the smartest, most engrossing YA fiction around--and her latest novel is no exception. After Elinor's father is arrested for his involvement in a shady business deal, his flighty second wife decamps to Italy with her infant son, leaving Elinor and her siblings to be parceled out to relatives they hardly know. Elinor is sent to stay with Aggie, her father's cousin. There she meets Aggie's mother, the ill-tempered Mrs. Carter, and Timon, her mercurial foster son. Timon is determined to regain Mrs. Carter's life savings, embezzled by Elinor's father, which may lie inside the locked suitcase that Elinor has secretly retrieved from Victoria Station. Though the story's neat-and-tidy happy ending is at odds with its emotionally sophisticated tone, readers will find much to relish in the doings of these idiosyncratic characters. Infused with a bittersweet seriousness, the work considers an assortment of weighty issues, all the while providing a pulse-quickening read. Ages 10-14.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Grade 6-9-- A convincing story of a girl who's forced to reevaluate her world and those around her. Elinor, 13, is stunned when the police come one morning to arrest her father for embezzlement. While the officers are distracted, her father slips her a luggage claim receipt. Later, when her stepmother asks about it, Elinor tells her she's destroyed it and secretly retrieves the case herself. She is uneasy over having the overnight bag but refuses to let her younger brother force it open; when they are parcelled out among relatives they barely know, Elinor takes it with her. She learns that her father has not only stolen from strangers but also from the very aunt and cousins who have reluctantly taken her in. Questions of whether she should open the case, to whom the money rightly belongs, and how she can best care for herself and her siblings are deftly handled by this master storyteller. Realistic characters, careful plotting, and the right amount of suspense combine to make A Kind of Thief a real page-turner. A grabber of a cover doesn't hurt either. --Jo-Anne Weinberg, Greenburgh Pub . Lib . , NY
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
