Oceans 5 in the magical underbelly of New York City.

I am thankful to Sterling & Stone, NetGalley, and the authors for my review copy. Below are my honest thoughts on this fun book.

In Ocean’s 11, professional thief Danny Ocean gets out on parole, rounds up his old gang, and plans a supposedly impossible heist on the day of a high-profile event while also attempting to win his ex-wife back. Plans get re-planned, banter reigns supreme, chaos thrives, and hijinks ensue.

In Ocean’s 8, professional con artist Debbie Ocean gets out on parole, rounds up her old gang, and plans a supposedly impossible heist on the day of a high-profile event while attempting to take revenge on her ex-partner who sent her to jail. Plans get re-planned, banter reigns supreme, chaos thrives, and hijinks ensue.

In Five Phantom Discount, Frank Phantom gets out on parole, rounds up a gang of magical practitioners, plans a supposedly impossible magical heist on the day of a high-profile event while attempting to win his ex-wife back and take revenge on his ex-partner who sent him to jail. Plans get re-planned, banter reigns supreme, chaos thrives, and hijinks ensue.

“Cliche. But cliches were cliches for a reason.”

“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination,” said Jim Jarmusch. Five Phantom Discount steals almost everything from the Ocean’s 11 and Ocean’s 8. Given this is a heist novel, the stealing context is fabulously meta and a whole lot of fun. The addition of magic makes this book stand out from the Oceans series as is rooting the book in NYC rather than Vegas.

“Magic and Crime make for a terrible mix. People are too quick to give in to their base desires when there’s magic involved”

When you are inspired so much, it pays to hew close to the things that work and then innovate. Five Phantom Discount captures the relentless charm and wittiness of the Oceans series perfectly. The to-and-fro repartee and the banter keep things extremely fresh and fun as Frank Phantom, out on parole, tries to get back to his old life. He immediately forges his connection with Clay Bishop, the Rusty to Frank’s Danny. Bishop has also been maintaining a low profile, as he was also one of the partners betrayed on the job which got Frank sent to prison. Bishop, a conman specialising in glamor, plays the straight man to an extent to Frank’s outrageous schemes, often acting as the sounding board (a rather complaining sounding board) while secretly being thrilled by what Frank has conceptualised. This relationship is the heartbeat of this novel, and their to-and-fro barbs keep the narrative chugging along at a brisk pace.

“My good behaviour hasn’t always been my best behaviour”

Frank’s target is a vault being held by Deacon, the partner who betrayed him on their last mission. Deacon not only double-crossed Frank but also stole Frank’s ex-wife. Deacon has also used the contents of the vault to rewire his image to become a successful businessman and is now the favourite to become mayor of New York. This makes Deacon a heavily guarded and protected target, a target made harder by the fact that Deacon has struck a deal with some of the largest magical underworld elements to protect this vault. It is this setup that confronts Frank and Bishop as they go about hiring a team to take Deacon down, and gradually we get the formation of Frank’s Five, which includes a necromancer, a magical hacker, and an old mentor who comes on board. Naturally, things go bad, the team has to improvise, and certain decisions have to be made. In the middle of all this is the magical equivalent of the FBI that is still after Frank for the heist he committed six years ago, led by the dogged Agent Veyne.

“Garry, the severed head, sat in the middle of the table, a hand towel covering him and two thick cables extending out of the back of his head and plugged into a black box with arcane symbols etched into it. There was a USB-C port on the opposite side of the black box and another cable extending to Olivia’s laptop. USB-Z, Olivia explained”

The narrative is extremely fast-paced, and it almost feels like this is a book written for the screen. The Oceans series reference also helps the reader kind of go along with the story with a bunch of laughs thrown in, especially at the most inopportune moments. The presence of magic and the complications that magic throws keep the book fresh as well. The seeds of divergence from the Oceans series are seeded in bits in the middle portion of the book when Frank encounters Agent Veyne – the piece that Frank stole six years ago, now nestling in Deacon’s vault, is actually a very powerful trinket and may have much wider implications for the whole world. These divergences come into play in the last 15% of the book, especially during the heist. This is where the book crafts its own path and identity from the Oceans series. Frank makes a series of choices that are, in a way, keeping in line with the regrets and the wishes that he had, having spent six years in prison, and it plays out in an interesting manner. This is what helps this book avoid being a complete facsimile of the Oceans series, but shows a new confident path for Frank and Bishop to take the story onto. In a way, that is the bigger heist that they pull on the reader. Having lulled the reader into predictability, they pull the rug from under and veer into a very interesting, unpredictable direction, and this makes it a series to watch out for. This is also interesting, as I would like the author to delve a bit deeper into the cost of magic and how it actually works. That element of the book was a bit hand-wavey and never felt explored enough – Frank and Bishop are glib enough that we don’t care for that in that moment, but if you think back, you realize those elements are lacking in this story and felt weak.

“I’m just constantly amazed by how you manage to thread the line of not lying, but also not telling the truth, and again, with the most authentic sincerity I have ever witnessed”

Five Phantom Discount is a fantastic start to a series – a book that wholly draws inspiration from the Oceans series while setting it in the NYC underworld and adding magic to the mix. The book is fast-paced, charming, and a whole lot of fun while being mostly derivative and needing some depth. However, the last 15% allows the book to strike its path and sets the series up for interesting times ahead, and rest assured, this is a series I plan on continuing.

4 Magical Heists on 5

Five Phantom Discount is available now – you can find out more HERE