The canvas was small, perhaps only eight by ten inches. And when the Second World War was over and places like Leningrad and Berlin were nothing but rubble and crumbling walls, the residents of the big house on Tverskoy Boulevard only had to take up a hammer and drive a single nail-to hang a painting on the landing at the top of the stairs-to mark the end of a long war.

When the rest of Russia stood shaking in the Siberian winds, that house had fires and gaslight in every room. When breadlines filled the streets during the reign of the czars, the big house had caviar.

Moscow can be a cold, hard place in winter.īut the big old house on Tverskoy Boulevard had always seemed immune to these particular facts, the way that it had seemed immune to many things throughout the years. Which means, this time, Katarina Bishop is making up her own rules. After all she has her best friend-the gorgeous Hale-and the rest of her crew with her as they chase the Cleopatra around the globe, dodging curses, realizing that the same tricks and cons her family has used for centuries are useless this time. Kat might be in way over her head, but she’s not going down without a fight. But it’s the third problem that makes Kat’s crew the most nervous and that is simply… the emerald is cursed. Second, since the fall of the Egyptian empire and the suicide of Cleopatra, no one who holds the emerald keeps it for long, and in Kat’s world, history almost always repeats itself. First, the gem hasn’t been seen in public in thirty years. That’s why Kat isn’t surprised when she’s asked to steal the infamous Cleopatra Emerald so it can be returned to its rightful owners. But for the last two months she’s simply been known as the girl who ran the crew that robbed the greatest museum in the world. Katarina Bishop has worn a lot of labels in her short life life.įriend.

Uncommon Criminals by Ally Carter