Books

10 Books Like Lupin To Read While You Wait On Part 2

Thieves and jewels and heists, oh my!

by K.W. Colyard

Netflix's Lupin puts a new spin on Maurice Leblanc's classic French stories about the titular gentleman thief, and viewers can't get enough. If you've already marathon-watched all five episodes of the new series, check out these 10 books like Lupin to read while you wait on Season 2.

Created by George Kay (Killing Eve) and François Uzan (Family Business), Lupin stars Omar Sy (Jurassic World) as Assane Diop, a Senegalese-French thief who draws inspiration from Leblanc's novels. Calling himself "Arsène Lupin" — the same name as the gentleman-thief protagonist of Leblanc's novels — Diop embarks on a new series of crimes to avenge his father's death by suicide.

We all love stories that blur the line between good guys and bad guys. Lupin is exactly that, and so are the books on the list below. Featuring outlandish capers and stylish crooks, these stories are just what you need to help you get over your post-Lupin Netflix slump.

Here are 10 books like Lupin to read once you've finished marathon-watching the series:

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1

There's probably no better way to get started on your post-Lupin reading than by picking up Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Thief. Taking 13 stories from Leblanc's dozens of Lupin tales, this collection is a well-curated must-read for Lupin fans.

2

Just one more job and they'll be set for life. Given the opportunity to pull off the heist of a lifetime, criminal wunderkind Kaz Brekker assembles a crack team — including an acrobat, a sniper, a demolitions expert, a magical negotiator, and a witch-hunter — to help him. It's probably a suicide mission, but the payoff promises to be worth the hassle in Six of Crows.

3

Set in an alternate version of late-19th-century Paris, Roshani Chokshi's The Gilded Wolves centers on Séverin, the prodigal son of a wealthy family, who operates of one of the city's biggest and best hotels by day and leads of a gang of thieves by night. Séverin's crew only concern themselves with magical items, and when the artifact that could restore their fearless leader to his rightful place among the city's elite comes into play, they're up to the task of recovering it... or so they think.

4

A Spy in the Struggle author Aya de León turns her attention in Uptown Thief to a group of New York City sex workers whose services fund a much-needed clinic and safe haven for the city's most vulnerable women. When an economic downturn leaves their clinic foundering, Marisol, Tyesha, Kim, and Jodie hatch a plan to steal from powerful men involved in sex trafficking. Enemies abound, however, and as they begin to circle closer, Marisol and her allies will need to keep their wits about them in order to keep themselves alive and in business.

5

A woman hatches a plan to curry favor with her mother, a powerful noble, in this novel from multi-award-winning author Ann Leckie. Set in the same world as Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy, the novel follows Ingray as she springs an infamous thief from an inescapable prison and sets out to recover a vestige: a precious artifact that will increase her family's political power. But as the mystery of the missing vestige unwinds, Ingray learns that darkness lies just beneath the surface of her homeland in Provenance.

6

Set in late-18th-century England, Baroness Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel centers on Sir Percy Blakeney, a gentleman whose reputation as a milquetoast fop belies his work as the eponymous hero: a masked man who saves the gentry from French revolutionaries. Oblivious to her husband's secret operations, Blakeney's wife, Marguerite, is determined to learn who the Scarlet Pimpernel is, but believing Percy could not possibly be the Pimpernel causes her to mistakenly endanger his life.

7

There used to be four Londons, but only three remain, now that Black London has fallen. Kell, a court magician from Red London, makes frequent diplomatic journeys to visit the bloodthirsty rulers of White London and the ailing king who sits on Grey London's throne. But when Kell comes into possession of an artifact from the depths of Black London, he and his new ally, a Grey London pirate named Lila, are thrust into a dangerous game, one in which dark magic lies around every corner.

8

The latest installment in Sherry Thomas' Lady Sherlock series, Murder on Cold Street finds Charlotte Holmes working her most difficult case yet. Charlotte's friend and ally, Inspector Treadles, is the prime suspect in a locked-room murder mystery but inexplicably chooses not to defend himself against the double-murder charges. Lady Sherlock must race against the clock to find the real killer and save her friend.

9

The evil Count Montesq had Nicholas Valiarde's godfather executed on trumped-up charges of necromancy. Gentleman Nicholas turned to a life of larceny to bankroll his vengeance. But as he marches toward Montesq's murder, the gentleman thief finds himself waylaid by a series of dreadful incidents. It seems that necromancy has returned to the land of Ile-Rein. Then again, perhaps it never left.

10

In mid-century London, the P.I. crew who work for Miss Brickett’s Investigations & Inquiries crack the cases Scotland Yard won't touch. But when their filing assistant receives an anonymous letter that lures her to the scene of her own murder, the Miss Brickett’s detectives find themselves facing a killer who may be in their very midst. When one man is arrested and charged, trainee Marion Lane steps in to solve her first case in Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder.