Multi-Billionaire at 16: A Review of Perfect Scoundrels by Ally Carter

Hello, Book Nerds! Welcome back to Reading Has Ruined My Life or welcome if you are new. As always, my name is Hannah and I am your captain on this journey into my bookcases.

As promised, I have returned this week with a new review. We are continuing on with the Heist Society trilogy today with the final book in the series. I’m not ready to say goodbye to this series just yet. It brought back so many memories for me. It was a fun dive into the past. Alas here we are.

So please give a warm welcome to Perfect Scoundrels by Ally Carter!

As always, a spoiler alert is in order. If you’ve read any other review on this site then you’ll know I love to spoil the entirety of the books I read. This is your one and only warning. With that, let’s get to the synopsis.

Our story today begins with death of Hazel Hale, the matriarch of the Hale family and W.W. Hale the Fifth’s grandmother. With her death comes a grieving Hale, and the rest of his family coming out of the woodwork in the hopes Hazel named one of them the heir and new owner of Hale Industries. Well guess what, Hazel named everyone’s favorite teenaged thief the heir! Hale has gone from billionaire to multi-billionaire overnight.

But something seems off. Hazel promised her long time lady’s maid, Marianne, that she would be provided for after Hazel’s passing. Except Marianne wasn’t mentioned in Hazel’s will at all, and she was Hazel’s best and only friend. Something else about this will smells fishy. That being Garrett, the family’s lawyer whom Hazel hated, being named as Hale’s trustee until Hale’s 25th birthday. Needless to say, Kat smells a con cause Hazel’s will is definitely fake.

Hale doesn’t want to hear what his found family has to say. His beloved grandma chose him to control Hale Industries and carry on the family legacy. But over the course of the book he does slowly come to the conclusion something is amiss. So with the help of Kat’s extended crime family, Hale and Kat set up a huge con to con the man behind another con. But can they do it in time? Can Kat find the real will? Or is Hale Industries about to go belly up and taking Hale with it? Find out in Perfect Scoundrels.  

Perfect Scoundrels is better than I remember it being. There was, I believe, a slightly longer wait for this entry to release than there was between Heist Society and Uncommon Criminals. For quite some time I assumed this series was going to be a duology before stumbling across Perfect Scoundrels in a bookstore. By the time I picked up this book, I had kinda forgotten the plot of the first two books and wasn’t as obsessed with series by then. While I still eagerly picked the book up, I found the story to be just okay at the time.

I wanted action and heists like in the first two entries. Perfect Scoundrels deals a lot more with Kat and Hale’s relationship and how she needs to save him from being conned. Not what I wanted as a young teen, but I appreciated it more as an adult. There was drama, high emotions, high stakes, and a high quality found family trope.

Found family is a top tier trope.

I truly believe the Heist Society series is a perfect example of the found family trope. It’s shown especially well in Perfect Scoundrels. While a good portion of the minor and supporting characters are related to Kat, some of the people closest to her are those who Kat have chosen. Hale and Kat met when she tried to steal a Monet from one of his family’s homes and he ended up following Kat home. Then you have Angus, Hamish, and Simon. While Ally Carter never specifically mentions how Kat and these three ever met, it’s known that they aren’t blood related. It’s also implied the four have worked together many times in the past on jobs. They’ve spent years together and have grown so close that Kat will always call them when she’s working on a heist. It’s very much giving the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. It’s what I want out of the found family trope.

Again, I gotta give it to the found family trope.

There’s a lot of emotion in this read. Grief, worry, anger, love; it’s all there. Ally Carter putting her characters in this emotionally difficult situation really allowed for Kat to really shine as a main character and for Hale to have a solid character arc. I’ve always found Kat to be an emotionally and intellectually mature character for a 16-year-old. I feel Perfect Scoundrels proved that while also giving her a massive struggle. Her goal is to protect the boy she loves, and while she is clearly affected by what is happening, she is thinking with a mostly clear head. While her emotions certainly play a part in the con planning process, logic wins out in the end despite Kat internally wanting to grab Hale, tell him he’s a mark, and run away with him. Instead she takes a step back to look at the situation and plan the best way to con the trickiest villain she’s faced yet. That’s not something easy to do when emotions are running high, and it’s enjoyable to watch Kat struggle between letting her emotions or logic win out.

And I couldn’t forget about Hale’s character arc. For the previous two books, his character has mainly been about funding cons and bluffing his way into private offices and places only the wealthy frequent. A character very necessary for the cons seen in Heist Society and Uncommon Criminals, but a character who can become very stale very quick. Perfect Scoundrels changes that. Hale develops so much emotionally as he goes through the stages of grief. The Hale readers see in the previous entries is pretty happy go lucky. Sure there’s some jealousy when Nick gets too close to Kat, but his personality isn’t the most multifaceted at times. It’s why it’s so nice to see him go through it in book three. He can’t afford to be the happy go lucky Hale readers know and love. He has to deal with his beloved grandmother’s death and running a multibillion dollar company and realizing he’s a mark and helping con the con artist. There’s so much going on in his life in such a short amount of time. It’s a situation that most definitely forces a person to change, and Hale does. He doesn’t come out of the situation unscathed; in fact the book ends with him still dealing with his grief. He becomes a little more distant and quieter, but he has become stronger from this struggle. He has a bigger appreciation for life, and Ally Carter painted a very realistic picture to how some deal with the loss of a loved one.

I really enjoyed this book. I truly forgot everything about Perfect Scoundrels from only having read it once years ago, and I was pleasantly surprised with what I found in this read. Heist Society and Uncommon Criminals exist in a realm of fantasy with the cast of teens pulling off the cons of the century with their insane talents and knowledge. It’s nice to have an entry in the series which humanizes some of them by making them deal with a death in the family.

With that, I shall bid you all adieu. Thank you very much for joining me today, Book Nerds! I will be back again next week with something very fun. If you can’t wait that long to revel in literary goodness then give RHRML a follow over on Instagram (@ReadingHasRuinedMyLife). I post there almost daily. You can also follow the blog on Twitter and BlueSky (@RHRMLBlog). If you want something not related to books then may I suggest listening to my podcast Nothing to See Hear. The show stars me and two of my dearest friends. We talk about everything under the sun. You want Spooky Season vibes? I got you covered with Haunt or Hoax and Cryptid Corner. You want to listen to everything Scooby-Doo? We’re reviewing every Scooby-Doo movie and TV show in order. Ya like Disney? We’re reviewing every film the studio has ever made. There’s something for everyone over there.

Until next time, stay safe, wash your hands, and read some good books for me.

See y'all then, bye.