Two Good Thieves

Demi is the best, the fastest, the luckiest child thief in an unnamed South American city. Baz has his back; she’s always on the alert, watching, waiting, running. They both know how to keep their mouths shut. But when Baz and Demi steal something very valuable from the police chief’s wife and give it to their boss and mother figure, Fay, for safekeeping, they need all the luck they can get. Baz and Demi discover that they have no one they can trust; that keeping Fay ‘safe’ no longer guarantees anything. Dramatically, their life in the Barrio rapidly unravels and Baz decides they should move up-country, to a place where they can disappear into freedom, even if it means leaving the only life they’ve ever known.

This novel is no light, easy read, but rather a piercing portrait of young lives trapped in the balance. Finn gives us a work of relentless, unpredictable action. The narrative of Two Good Thieves is written largely in dialect form, which causes some difficulty, but is necessary to establish the atmosphere. While avoiding the use of gratuitous violence and seediness, Finn creates an authentic sense of place where life is cheap, people are expendable and the boundaries between good and evil are blurred. A contemporary Oliver Twist, Two Good Thieves is a strong and worthy read that endures long after the book is finished.