Someone once told me that mystery writers used to write a different ending for their advance reader copies, so that no one truly knows how it ends until the book is published. I did a, like, 2 minute DuckDuckGo search and found nothing indicating that this is real, or ever was real. So I dunno about that. But oh my goodness, I wish with my entire heart that when The Frame-Up is published, I will flip to the end and find that it got published with a completely different ending. 

The first two thirds of this book was great. The premise is absolutely amazing - I was about halfway through and I was already writing a 5 star review in my head. That review would have started “If I had a nickel for every time this year I’ve picked up a heist-y mystery-y book and had no idea it had magic in it only to be pleasantly surprised when the characters are suddenly doing magic, I’d have two nickels.” (The other one was The Cartographers, and it counts as the same year because I finished that one on December 24th, 2022, and this one on December 23rd, 2023). But anyway, this is a book about art thieves who respect art, which is already my most favorite premise, and it’s also a book with magic (apparently), and it’s also a book about finding where you belong, and also eat the rich, and also it was even supposed to have some romance in it! So, basically, this book should have been perfect for me specifically. 

The following paragraph contains spoilers but all paragraphs after are safe:

Somewhere between halfway through and two-thirds through, I started to worry that this book was not going to end in a way I wanted it to. Dani left the secret world of thieves and magic, and has been spending her time using her non-magical skills to do vigilante charity work for people who’ve been wronged. At no point does the book show us that Dani misses the secret world, just that she misses her friends and family who are in it, and she maybe misses doing magic. There was even a line when Dani meets back up with Mia that, between the two of them, Dani was always the one who felt uncomfortable doing crime! And so wouldn’t the perfect ending be patching things up with her mother and friends (which did happen), but then choosing to be with the guy who wants her to be part of a charity with him and who uses his magic but not for thievery?! I had been thinking it was just a super slow-burn romance with an annoying side second love interest who would either betray her or she would just realize she doesn’t fit with him and his world anymore, and she would choose the guy who the entire first half of the book was setting up to be the endgame love interest. But instead she chooses to be with the guy who will never leave the secret world, and to go back to crime? This is literally backwards character development. All the ideals and motivations we learn about Dani in the beginning of the book are meaningless by the end. (And nevermind that the romance plot is barely there anyway.)

Maybe this is just a case of the author wanting to tell a different story than the one I wanted to read. And that’s fine. I just can’t help feeling that some of the narrative choices simply did not make sense. I’m giving this book 3.5 because I am truly in love with the premise, and the first half definitely delivered. And I really want more magic art heist stories. The last half just let me down. If I wasn’t obsessed with art heists, this might not even be a 3. 

 Thanks to Ballantine Books (Random House) and NetGalley for the e-ARC!