Medici Heist

A young con artist enlists the help of Michelangelo to rob a corrupt pope in Schneiderhan’s riveting debut heist tale. In 1517 Florence, where the Medicis reign with a golden fist, Rosa Cellini has been conning soldiers out of coins since she was a child. Now 17, Rosa concocts a plan to steal 10,000 gold florins from Pope Leo X and the Medicis, a seemingly impossible feat. She recruits the best thieves in Italy—tinkerer Sarra, sleight-of-hand prodigy and master of disguise Giacomo, prize fighter Khalid, and Agata, an alchemist and rumored witch—as well as famed painter Michelangelo and his magnetic assistant Dominic. But the Medici guard have eyes everywhere, and the band of misfits must put aside their fraught past to pull off the heist of the century. Inapposite metaphor and modern vocabulary spread across numerous alternating POVs occasionally fumble immersion into the 16th-century setting. Still, Schneiderhan utilizes clear-headed genre savvy and leisurely, dialogue-driven chapters teeming with sharp banter and elevating stakes to drive the found family toward their goal in this gleeful Renaissance caper. Characters cue as Italian. Ages 13–up. Agent: John Cusick, Folio Literary. (Aug.)