Once a Thief

Rating:
Summary: Da Bang Chang Review
Review: Book Review
Lies, deceit, greed, seduction, suspense, and action. Once a Thief delivers it all; it has everything that makes up an excellent book. The book paints a perfect image in your mind at all times and will keep you at the edge of your seat. Believe me, you won't want to put the book down. I highly recommend it; Kay Hooper does a great job with visualization.
Max Bannister is holding an exhibit for his world-famous collection of diamonds. This is the first time that the Bannister Collection has been displayed for a long time. Max is worried about the safety of his collection, and hires top-notch security guards to protect his priceless treasures. Max knows that his collection will bring some of the best thieves to town, which worries him. Quinn is a thief on top of the world at the present time. He has never been caught, seen or even heard. He is a smooth criminal and doesn't have a real alias; he goes by Quinn, his eyes are focused on the Bannister Collection, and he wants it bad. Trust me, if you love to read suspense-filled books this is the perfect one for you.

Rating:
Summary: Da Bang Chang Review
Review: Book Review
Lies, deceit, greed, seduction, suspense, and action. Once a Thief delivers it all; it has everything that makes up an excellent book. The book paints a perfect image in your mind at all times and will keep you at the edge of your seat. Believe me, you won't want to put the book down. I highly recommend it; Kay Hooper does a great job with visualization.
Max Bannister is holding an exhibit for his world-famous collection of diamonds. This is the first time that the Bannister Collection has been displayed for a long time. Max is worried about the safety of his collection, and hires top-notch security guards to protect his priceless treasures. Max knows that his collection will bring some of the best thieves to town, which worries him. Quinn is a thief on top of the world at the present time. He has never been caught, seen or even heard. He is a smooth criminal and doesn't have a real alias; he goes by Quinn, his eyes are focused on the Bannister Collection, and he wants it bad. Trust me, if you love to read suspense-filled books this is the perfect one for you.

Rating:
Summary: Da Bang Chang Review
Review: Book Review
Sefa Beasley
English
Final Draft
May, 25 2004
Lies, deceit, greed, seduction, suspense, and action. Once a Thief delivers it all; it has everything that makes up an excellent book. The book paints a perfect image in your mind at all times and will keep you at the edge of your seat. Believe me, you won't want to put the book down. I highly recommend it; Kay Hooper does a great job with visualization.
Max Bannister is holding an exhibit for his world-famous collection of diamonds. This is the first time that the Bannister Collection has been displayed for a long time. Max is worried about the safety of his collection, and hires top-notch security guards to protect his priceless treasures. Max knows that his collection will bring some of the best thieves to town, which worries him. Quinn is a thief on top of the world at the present time. He has never been caught, seen or even heard. He is a smooth criminal and doesn't have a real alias; he goes by Quinn, his eyes are focused on the Bannister Collection, and he wants it bad. Trust me, if you love to read suspense-filled books this is the perfect one for you.

Rating:
Summary: Da Bang Chang Review
Review: Book Review
Sefa Beasley
English
Final Draft
May, 25 2004
Lies, deceit, greed, seduction, suspense, and action. Once a Thief delivers it all; it has everything that makes up an excellent book. The book paints a perfect image in your mind at all times and will keep you at the edge of your seat. Believe me, you won't want to put the book down. I highly recommend it; Kay Hooper does a great job with visualization.
Max Bannister is holding an exhibit for his world-famous collection of diamonds. This is the first time that the Bannister Collection has been displayed for a long time. Max is worried about the safety of his collection, and hires top-notch security guards to protect his priceless treasures. Max knows that his collection will bring some of the best thieves to town, which worries him. Quinn is a thief on top of the world at the present time. He has never been caught, seen or even heard. He is a smooth criminal and doesn't have a real alias; he goes by Quinn, his eyes are focused on the Bannister Collection, and he wants it bad. Trust me, if you love to read suspense-filled books this is the perfect one for you.

Rating:
Summary: To The Dazed And Confused !!!
Review: For those of you Kay Hooper fans, Once A Thief may seem a
bit confusing. There is a reason for this, this story is a kind
of repeat. Kay Hooper wrote FOUR stories for Loveswept Books in 1993. She called it the "Men Of Mysteries Past" series. These
book titles were "The Touch Of Max", "Hunting The Wolf", "The
Trouble With Jared", and "All For Quin".
Once A Thief, Is a kind of combination of the first two books.
This is not a reprint exactly. There are just different in-depth
details that you did not get in the origial publication.
I really enjoyed this book because it expanded on a story that
I really love to read. I hope this helps to explain the confusion
of more than one sub plot, because there are several there to keep you guessing. By the way you will love the ending!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Not a good mystery or romance
Review: Hooper writes an introduction to this book and its sequel "Always A Thief" explaining that they are re-works of a set of romance novels she published earlier. Unfortunately the end result are two books that don't work - in either genre.

If you're looking for a good mystery - go elsewhere. With character names like Storm and Wolfed and Morgana, you can tell right off that this is no serious mystery tome. Add in a lot of cheesy dialogue about feelings and even more cheesy descriptions of passionate embraces and you've got a dimestore romance started.

But Hooper tries to throw in a plot and in doing so only confuses things and frustrates her readers. The character of Quinn is very intriguing and it is why I picked up these books. However, as romance writers are wont to do, Hooper has made him and this band of merry character too perfect. The women are all gorgeous and Mensa smart, the men are incredibly handsome and athletic. Coincidences abound and logic goes straight out the window.

In sum, this book is very frustrating because it had the potential to be a fun read and instead is just disapointing.

Rating:
Summary: A Disappointing Novel That Is Not Complete.
Review: I am a Kay Hooper fan and have read and enjoyed most of her books. I was looking forward to reading "Once A Thief," and now that I completed it, I find myself disappointed with both the novel and the author. Ms. Hooper writes, in an Author's Note, that ten years ago she wrote various short novels for Bantam's Loveswept Romance series. She became attached to one of her Loveswept heroes, Quinn, A Cary Grant-like cat burglar, right out of "To Catch A Thief," and felt that she would like to work with him again. This book is a rewrite, and supposedly an improvement over the first attempt, where the author felt limited by the series' restrictions.

There is very little about Quinn in this novel. Neither he, nor his love interest, nor his capers figure prominently. He appears briefly, to meet and rescue Morgan, the exhibit director of a priceless collection scheduled to be featured as the "Mysteries Past" exhibit at a prestigious San Francisco museum. Morgan stayed after hours to catch up on work, and, as she was leaving she interrupted a robbery in progress. Quinn, who had been casing the premises, was also present to observe the robbery. He saved her from being discovered and they discover there is strong mutual attraction. They meet again on a few minor occasions, where he kisses her and steals her favorite necklace. Another time she rescues him from a kidnapping. That's it, that's about all for Morgan and Quinn, in this book that supposedly features him. The characters are just dropped, as are the readers, and told to wait for book two, the sequel. I do not mind sequels. I do mind buying a book to read about a character, and then being told that I have to buy another to get what I originally paid for. I take exception when a book does not stand on its own merit. I do not believe that "Once A Thief" is a complete novel. It is more like Part #1...to be continued.

The main story revolves around Wolfe Nickerson, the collection owner's half-brother. He is a security expert at Lloyd's of London, and responsible for supervising the security of "Mysteries Past." He is not even featured in the book's synopsis on the back cover. He gets involved with Storm Tremaine, (Who thinks up these names? And how can a character with a name like this be believable?), a computer expert from Ace Security, installing a super-system for the super exhibit. She is really working for Interpol, however, and attempting to bait Quinn to rob the collection so that he can finally be captured.

A ho-hum, predictable plot, cardboard characters, except for Quinn...but we don't have too much of him to sink our teeth into...metaphorically, of course. So what we get with "Once A Thief" is one-half of a book...and not the right half to boot. I refuse to buy the next installment, on principle alone. It is a shame that Ms. Hooper did not accomplish what she stated in her Author's Note. Quinn is fascinating, and I do understand why she wanted to write more about him.

Rating:
Summary: Draggy & Pointless
Review: I am one of the number one Kay Hooper fans but even that couldn't salvage me reading this book. I finished it quickly because I couldn't wait to get started on the second book. I assumed ( Once A Thief ) would be tremendous and the start of a wonderful series. I was wrong. This book doesn't even seem like Kay Hooper wrote it. The characters are one-dimensional. The plot was half-done and skipped. She started off moving smoothly with Morgan and Quinn, but ended up basing the entire story on a romance between Wolff and Storm ( two characters that had no chemistry ). We end up hearing about Storm's boring Louisiana up bringing and Wolff's constant whining. Once Kay started dwelling on the scenes with Storm's cat Bear I knew she must have run out of a decent plot. To me it was like she tried to make a sequel out of a book that should have only been done once. Once A Thief went nowhere with a bunch of endless dialogue. I still don't understand why Storm and Wolff took up the first book because you hardly heard about them in the second. It all made me go; " Now what's the point of this? " If you don't understand why I've said that, read the book. I can guarantee you'll say that to yourself at least five times. The sad thing is there wasn't a point to the characters or the entire story. Quinn was the most interesting, yet arrogant character. I also didn't buy him as this world famous cat burgular because he put his life on the line for too many stupid things. Kay what happened?

Rating:
Summary: When I Read A Book, I Expect An Ending
Review: I couldn't wait for the opportunity to write this review!!! I travel a lot in my job, so I keep a book with me for airport waits & to fill time between meetings. I made the mistake of buying 'Once A Thief'. Not only did it contain characters that were never developed (there is great potential), but a story line that was left dangling as well. I am a bit resentful about having purchased a book with no conclusion. The fact that it was a two part story should have been made obvious so that I could determine whether it was a reasonable purchase at the time. Better yet, why not just wait until the characters are developed and there is an ending and put it all in one book?

At the end of the book I sat in the airport feeling unsatified and tricked.

Rating:
Summary: A Pleasure to read
Review: I didn't read her earlier version, so this is a new one for me. It was absolutely wonderful, witty, and has one of the most charming characters I've found yet. Kay Hooper is one of the best authors today. Definitely worth reading. I hope she writes more stories with Quinn....