Review: Just Had To Tell You About This One...

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The Thieves of Heaven

By Richard Doetsch

Bantam Dell
ISBN: 9780440242888
449 Pages
2006 (This review has spoilers...)





Have you ever finished a book that was so enjoyable that you just had to tell somebody?!

Well I've just read The Thieves of Heaven by Richard Doetsch and so YOU are the one I'm going to tell! Cool, right?



Michael St. Pierre is a master thief--or should I say he was, since he's retired now and married to his beautiful, beloved wife, Mary. He was first sent to prison when he chose to save a woman's life rather than leave the site where he was in the midst of stealing diamonds. Of course, nobody really knew what he had done so he was sent to jail and was now out, running his own security system business.

He and his wife, Mary, are very much in love. When she first learned he was a thief, she pulled away but soon came back to him and visited him while he was in prison. But she did ask Michael for a promise: he was not to go back into his life of crime!

Helping him to keep that promise is his parole officer, now close friend, Detective Busch. His wife, Jeanne and Mary are also close friends.

But then they found that Mary had a tumor which was cancerous. Her treatment would cost $250,000. Busch offered to cash in his $35,000 retirement, but no bank would give Michael a loan and Mary had just changed jobs and her insurance had not yet started. Mary was a very devout woman and both regularly attended the Church. Michael even begged them for help; they turned him away!

Where could Michael get the money?!

And then he was visited by a well-known billionaire; he would pay all expenses for Mary, if Michael would do one job for him.

With no other option, Michael agreed. And then learned that he was to steal just two keys--from the Vatican!

I must say that the planning and undertaking of this job was exciting, thrilling and amazing! But the keys he successfully stole were not the real ones, they were there in the Vatican museum as a decoy, thinking nobody would try to take the keys from that location...

In order to complete the job and get the remaining money, Michael had to figure out where the keys really were! Michael had a mind for such strategic thinking...so it didn't take him long to figure out where to go next.

For by now, Michael knew that the keys were those that had been given by Jesus to Simon Peter some 2000 years ago...

And he did find the keys, but was almost killed until again, his mind figured out how to get away. He immediately delivered the keys to his employer and went home to Mary. It was then that he learned that the treatments for Mary were not working; the cancer was spreading.

And the man who he had escaped when he found the keys was at his home waiting...His name was...Simon...

He told Michael a story about himself and explained what he had done by stealing the keys. And who the billionnaire really was. He told Michael they were going to steal the keys back!

Or else, Mary would never be able to go to Heaven. The keys to Heaven were no longer sacred and secure. Heaven was closed!

I must say that I love fiction based upon the Bible! And Richard Doetsch with The Thieves of Heaven gave this suspense/mystery/thriller fan one of the best books I've ever read! Michael is filled with disbelief, fear, worry, but he could not take the risk that his beloved Mary would not ever be able to go home to Heaven...

What would YOU do? This is supernatural suspense at its finest! A must-read recommendation from this reviewer! Forgive my giving you more of the story than I would normally; this book was published in 2006. It is soooo cool, I just had to tell...

Book was Purchased

G. A. Bixler