ONCE A THIEF, Christopher Reich’s fourth Simon Riske caper, begins with a celebration for a $100 million sale of a rare vintage Ferrari that Riske and his colleagues had restored. But when Sylvie Bettencourt, the agent for the mystery buyer, demands that Riske find the car’s original gearbox, he follows the trail to a Russian mobster whom he helped capture several years earlier. Now in witness protection, the mobster seems to be taunting Riske by holding on to the prized gearbox.

"The exotic locales and plot twists, not to mention enough action to keep you turning each page, make ONCE A THIEF an enjoyable experience."

Of course, our hero prevails --- until Sylvie shows him evidence tying him to a murder that she threatens to release unless he agrees to work for her. Though she travels around the world, spending millions on cars, art and real estate in a money laundering operation for a high-placed Russian, she wants her own fortune and needs Riske’s skills to retrieve financial information that would allow her to retire and disappear.

As this is playing out, a car bomb kills a Swiss banker with ties to the Russians. His daughter, Anna, though not close to him, feels that she must find out who murdered him, and why. Along the way, she and Riske cross paths, learning that they have a common foe. As Riske is sucked into the underworld of the oligarchs, and as Anna and a crowdsourced crime-solving group called Chatterbell get closer to the truth about her father, the risks increase and the opponents multiply.

Those who have followed Simon Riske may know his background as a young thief in Marseille. But despite his shady past, he’s not usually a violent sort, so some of his actions may surprise readers at first. However, the denouement, which is hurried and not entirely satisfying, helps to explain his rationale. The exotic locales and plot twists, not to mention enough action to keep you turning each page, make ONCE A THIEF an enjoyable experience.