Will was at work at the Sackler Museum when it was robbed, the thieves making off with some priceless Chinese art. Will had recently written about the questionable provenance of Asian art in museums around the world, and that (as well as the fact that he snagged a small jade figurine himself) is probably why the thieves asked him to lead a team to steal back five bronze zodiac heads that had been stolen from China's Old Summer Palace in 1860. Soon, Will, his sister Irene, their friend Daniel, Irene's roommate Lily, and Will's friend Alex are traveling the globe and plotting ways to break into some of the world's most prestigious museums to steal the heads — after all, there's $50 million in it for them if they can get the heads back to China.
While this debut heist novel is a bit slow at times, the back story of the missing zodiac heads is real (though the five that aren't in Chinese museums are also not at the museums in the book), which brings the story to a different level. I love heist novels and movies (I giggled when the five students in the book watched heist movies to plan their own robberies), so it surprises me to say that what I enjoyed most about this book was the way Li brought nuance to the characters' identities as children of immigrants, and made me think hard about the whole idea of stolen art being displayed at western museums. I enjoyed this one.
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