Eight fantasies about thieves, schemes and risky jobs

A fantasy about thieves or a risky scheme offers two kinds of pleasure at once. You can watch a plan take shape, and you can learn the rules of a world by seeing what its characters need to get around. Magic, social status, architecture and money become practical problems. These eight books make room for cleverness, performance and the possibility that the people involved will prove harder to manage than the task itself.

Not every choice is a conventional heist with the same stages. Some focus on a con, some on a crew, and some use a theft or a thief's reputation as the starting point for a larger adventure. That distinction matters if you are looking for a particular plot shape. Choose for the kind of ingenuity you enjoy, and consider audience and tone separately: several of these worlds are violent, even when the characters are funny.

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The Mask of Mirrors by M.A. Carrick

M. A. Carrick introduces Ren, a con artist trying to establish herself within a noble household in the city of Nadezra. The deception opens into a world of social divisions, political interests and magic whose rules she cannot simply control through confidence. Choose this if the performance of identity is your favourite part of a scheme, and you want an elaborate setting that gives a successful lie consequences beyond its original purpose.