8 Woman-Centric Heist Novels to Read If You Loved Ocean’s 8

Diamonds Aren’t Forever, by Connie Shelton
A rare “reverse heist” is at the fore in this fast-paced, fun story. Penelope Fitzpatrick’s family isn’t rich, but it’s been sustained by jewels that her grandfather smuggled out of Russia when the tsar fell. Now there’s just one jewel left—and it’s been stolen in a brazen robbery. Pen puts together a caper team, but the job isn’t to rob someone else—it’s to take back that which is hers by birthright. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a wholly satisfying heist at the center of this breezy novel—for Pen, pulling it off is far from a sure thing.

Uptown Thief, by Aya de León
Marisol Rivera is a good women—she runs a women’s health clinic on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and she’s dedicated to helping her patients. So dedicated that she’s willing to run a brothel for the 1 percent in order to pay the bills—supplemented by a little light thievery from the CEOs and Titans of old money who patronize it. When even this isn’t enough, she plots an ambitious heist that she thinks will set her and the clinic up for life—and as you might imagine, everything quickly goes sideways. This book’s fiercely feminist tone is right in line with today’s news, and the heist is thrillingly detailed.

Artemis, by Andy Weir
In Artemis, city on the Moon, Jazz Bashara works as a porter, scraping by and supplementing her income with a little light smuggling on the side. Her moonlighting brings her into contact with wealthy, powerful figures like Trond Landvik, a businessman with designs on a lunar aluminum monopoly. Landvik asks Jazz to come up with a way to sabotage his competition, and Jazz seizes the opportunity to grab a big score with a bold plan. The resulting caper moves at a mile a minute, and is delivered with the same witty dialogue and ribald humor that made us fall in love with Mark Watney, narrator of Weir’s blockbuster novel The Martian. Jazz is a woman with a serious attitude problem, and you’ll quickly come to love her.

Void Moon, by Michael Connelly
Connelly knows from crime novels, and his first Cassie Moon story is steeped in caper energy. Moon opens the novel is prison, craving revenge. She’s planning to rob the high-roller suite at the Las Vegas casino where she was arrested five years previously attempting the same crime—a bungled job that left her lover dead. She plots the heist with incredible precision, and pulls it off—only to find herself pursued by a tireless private detective. The fact that Moon viewed this robbery as her literal “one last score” before retiring just makes the mess that follows her delightfully ironic. There aren’t many better crime writers than Connelly, and this is one of his most, er, arresting efforts.

The Grifters, by Jim Thompson
Thompson soul-killing view of the universe may be best absorbed in small doses, but wow, did the man know how to bring the sordid lives of criminals to bright, electric life. The crimes in this book are confidence games, not proper heists, but when the characters discuss their business of fooling people out of their money, the same sort of buzzing electricity fills your head. The planning, the details, the quick-thinking that saves the day—it’s all here, soaked in darkness and horror. If the Ocean’s movies leave you feeling a bit too sunny about breaking the law, this novel will set you back on the straight and narrow.

Rulebreaker, by Cathy Pegau
Another sci-fi setting with a satisfying heist. On the mining colony of Nevarro, Liv Braxton makes her way with straightforward smash-and-grab thievery. Her simple approach is complicated when an old lover invites her to help him in a big score, and she accepts—only to find that the powerful woman she’s supposed to deceive has gotten under her skin in a way she never anticipated. The SFF elements are lightly handled, and the main pleasures are in the surprisingly detailed heist and the emotional effect it has on Liv.

The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules, by Catharina Ingelman Sundberg
Martha Andersson may be 79 and interred at a retirement home, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to just take what life hands her. Fed up with bad food and restrictive rules, she recruits some of her elderly compatriots into the League of Pensioners, and proceeds to wreak havoc around the place. The League’s minor crimes somehow slowly build up to a full-on bank heist. If you think wishing to break out of the rules and make one big score is something that only the young can contemplate, this book will show you otherwise, and in fine style, as Martha and her gang of seniors—who even have cool criminal nicknames—show the kids just how a caper is pulled off.

Ruin of Angels, by Max Gladstone
Set in an urban fantasy universe in which magic and disputes over zoning regulations go hand-in-hand, the standalone sixth installment of Max Gladstone’s Craft Sequence is the SFF heist story you’ve been looking for. In the city of Agdel Lex, which sits atop the wreckage of another city, destroyed in the God Wars, the streets shift without notice, tethered to one reality or another only by a shared understanding. Into this strange landscape wanders Kai, a priestess on the hunt for her missing sister, Ley. Kai finds Ley has been involved in a very shady business deal and is now on the run—but what she doesn’t know is that Ley is plotting a magical heist that could change the fate of the city and everyone in it. Assuming she survives, of course.
Did we miss your favorite woman-centric heist story? Let us know!