Books like “The Lies of Locke Lamora”

What to read after “The Lies of Locke Lamora” by Scott Lynch: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
The Spirit Thief
Rachel Aaron · 2010
Same genre: “Fantasy”
- Gentleman Thief
- Trickster
Eli Monpress is a wizard and a thief who would rather have a larger bounty than a heavier purse. To raise it he kidnaps a king, which brings the Spirit Court's envoy Miranda Lyonette after him. Eli's easy charm hides a plan that puts more than his own bounty at stake.
2
The Amulet of Samarkand
Jonathan Stroud · 2003
Same genre: “Fantasy”
Nathaniel is a young apprentice magician who summons the djinni Bartimaeus to steal a powerful amulet from a politician. The djinni is clever, sarcastic and far from willing, and the theft sets off a fight that neither of them expected to survive.
3
Foundryside
Robert Jackson Bennett · 2018
Same genre: “Fantasy”
Sancia Grado is a thief in Tevanne, a city where scribing commands objects to obey written orders. Hired to steal a key, she finds it holds power that could break the four merchant houses' grip on magic, and the houses will kill to keep that power buried.
4
Six of Crows
Leigh Bardugo · 2015
Same genre: “Heist fiction”
A street criminal offers six dangerous outcasts a fortune to break into an impregnable fortress and rescue a captive inventor. The heist needs a plan no one has tried before, and none of the crew trusts the others.
5
The Gilded Wolves
Roshani Chokshi · 2019
Similar plot moves: “Heist” and “Found Family”
Paris, 1889. Severin Montagnet-Alarie, a hotelier and treasure-hunter, is offered the chance to reclaim the inheritance his family was denied. To earn it he must assemble a crew and steal an ancient artifact, a job that takes them into the secret society that rules the city's magic.
6
Mistborn: The Final Empire
Brandon Sanderson · 2006
Same genre: “Heist fiction”
In an ash-covered empire, a street thief is trained in allomancy, the magic of burning metals. She joins a crew planning to overthrow the immortal Lord Ruler, though the prophecy around her may be a lie.
7
The Great Train Robbery
Michael Crichton · 1975
Similar plot moves: “Gentleman Thief” and “Heist”
- Gentleman Thief
- Heist
In 1855 a polished thief plans to steal a shipment of gold being carried by train from London toward the Crimea. He gathers a crew, copies the four keys to the safes and studies the timetable, while a police informant threatens to expose the scheme.
8
Going Postal
Terry Pratchett · 2004
Same genre: “Fantasy”
- Trickster
Moist von Lipwig is a con man offered a choice: be hanged, or revive Ankh-Morpork's ruined post office. With the city's mail piled up undelivered in the crumbling post office and a rival message company sabotaging him, he sets out to make the letters move and stay ahead of his own past.
9
The Thief
Megan Whalen Turner · 1996
Similar plot moves: “Trickster”
- Trickster
Gen has been locked in the king's prison of Sounis for boasting that he can steal anything. Freed by the king's magus, he is dragged along on a hunt for an ancient artifact that could settle the fate of three nations, and he schemes, complains and remembers more than he admits.
10
The Stardust Thief
Chelsea Abdullah · 2022
Same genre: “Fantasy”
- Found Family
Loulie al-Nazari, the Midnight Merchant, trades in jinn relics with her jinn bodyguard Qadir. When the sultan forces her into a search for a lost lamp, she must cross a desert of jinn, thieves and old stories, where the line between merchant and prey keeps shifting.
11
Tress of the Emerald Sea
Brandon Sanderson · 2023
Same genre: “Fantasy”
- Found Family
Tress lives on an island where the seas are made of deadly spores. When the man she loves is taken by the Sorceress, she leaves her ordinary life, gathers an unlikely crew and sails toward the midnight sea to bring him home.
12
The Quantum Thief
Hannu Rajaniemi · 2010
Similar plot moves: “Gentleman Thief” and “Heist”
- Gentleman Thief
- Heist
Jean le Flambeur is a thief imprisoned in a city where residents trade their memories and time. He is offered his freedom if he can pull off one more impossible heist, with a warrior from a distant society watching his every move.