House of Thieves

Charles Belfoure does not disappoint in this second novel.  Quickly on the heels of his amazingly written and well received novel The Paris Architect, Belfoure has wowed me again.  There is certainly a similar theme running through this story about an architect who seems to have no option but to compromise his ethical beliefs and use his knowledge of architecture for evil.

In this novel you are drawn into the world of New York in 1886.  There is a clear division between the wealthy society life around Central Park and the underworld of life in the Tenderloin and Bowery districts of the City.  The Cross family are distant, relatively poor relations to the famed Knickerbocker society.  These families comprise the descendants of the original Dutch founders of the New Amsterdam.  John Cross, a successful architect and his wife Helen, a society wife live with their three children, George, a Harvard graduate,  Julia, a debutante and Charlie the youngest brother.

In an effort to help his son George out of a gambling debt, John Cross gets involved with the underworld gang, Kent's Gents, led by James T. Kent.  Kent is a well-bred, Princeton educated man from a wealthy mercantile family in Baltimore.  He trained as a doctor, but found that he got a adrenaline rush from committing crimes.  He runs an extensive crime organization.  Cross is just the type of partner he has been looking for.  With Cross' knowledge of architecture his gang can increase their portfolio.

With wonderful descriptive prose Belfoure creates both the elite social society and their whirlwind high living party world and the colorful back streets underworld.  He brings out the moral dilemmas that face both the people with everything and the people with nothing.  He develops the characters so well you are not sure who is justified and who you think is guilty.  As an architect himself, Belfoure has the insight and imagination to bring to the written page a character that designs buildings and then how to use that knowledge to outwit the security systems of that time period.

This is the beginning of the Pinkerton guard force and the security systems we use today.