Join the (book) club — Lill’s Library is a biweekly series where former KidLit agent intern and avid reader Lillian Heckler tells you what young adult titles are taking up space on her bookshelf. This week, we’re reading The Whiz Mob and the Grenadine Kid by Colin Meloy.

It’s 80 degrees in the city, and everyone is suddenly outside. The parks are packed, and the sidewalks are filled with tourists and schoolchildren alike. Every public bench is occupied and I can’t seem to get away from shirtless men playing ultimate frisbee, running, or reading. 

(What is it with men and doing things unclothed?)

Anyway, ever since the crush of summer crowds became unavoidable, my mind has been occupied by sleight of hand. Not just because the number of curious gazes around me has increased, but because of Colin Meloy’s sharp, strange, and deeply detailed story about child criminals: The Whiz Mob and the Grenadine Kid.

Set in 1960s Marseille, the story centers on Charlie Fisher, an American boy who adults refer to as “well-mannered” but not necessarily “interesting.” His father is a United States diplomat who’s rarely around, and his caretakers are well-meaning but not inclined to ask questions. Charlie spends his days wandering the French streets, scribbling observations in a notebook while his father works. It’s a lonely, sun-drenched life until Charlie witnesses a boy about his age lift a grown man’s wallet in a series of lightning-fast, almost balletic pickpocket maneuvers. From that moment on, Charlie is hooked. He doesn’t just want to understand what he’s seen — he wants in.

That single choice pulls Charlie into the orbit of the titular Whiz Mob — a crew of orphaned, worldly, deeply competent child criminals who work the streets in coordinated teams and report to a network of adults who seem like failed magicians and disgraced philosophers. They are fluent in a language called “thieves’ cant.” They refer to one another by code names (“Borra,” “Mouse,” “Pluto”). They carry tools in custom-fitted waistcoats. They are graded on technique, stealth, and professionalism. They take their jobs — if not themselves — very seriously.

What follows is not a spy story or a heist (though there are elements of both), but something stranger and more layered. Best known as the frontman of the rock band The Decemberists and for his series The Wildwood Chronicles, Meloy leans fully into specificity, soaking the story in era and place: cobbled alleys, vintage trams, lemon sodas at sidewalk cafés … There’s a deep commitment to the fictional pickpocketing lexicon, complete with footnotes and a glossary of formal definitions.

There’s also a sort of dry theatricality to the prose — a narrative voice that could easily belong to a mustached narrator in a velvet chair, prefacing each chapter with a wink. The result is a novel that reads like a cross between a vintage instruction manual and a boyhood fantasy. It’s highly stylized but sincere.

For all its caper-like energy, The Whiz Mob and the Grenadine Kid is an unusually quiet book. Beneath the schemes and street chases is a story about loneliness, belonging, and the shifting rules of childhood. The emotional beats land precisely because they’re tucked inside such a finely built contraption. One minute you’re reading about the difference between a “cannon” and a “chump,” and the next you’re thinking about what it means to give up your real name to feel like you matter. Charlie’s fascination with the Whiz isn’t just about danger or rebellion. It’s about finding a place in a world that’s rarely made space for him — and then grappling with the fact that this new world comes with its own boundaries, risks, and secrets.

The action builds slowly, which won’t be to everyone’s taste. But what it lacks in speed, it more than makes up for in texture. Carson Ellis’s delicate black-and-white illustrations add visual flair to an already carefully built atmosphere, and the novel’s best moments come not in the chase scenes but in the beats of stillness — when hands hover just above a coat pocket, or when a lie goes unspoken between friends.

The Whiz Mob and the Grenadine Kid is a book that rewards patience, curiosity, and a taste for the slightly off-kilter. It’s one that asks: If you could become someone entirely new out of pure skill and charisma, not magic, would you? And if you do transform, what happens when the show’s over?

The next time you’re enjoying the sun at the park, let this story slip into your hands like a lifted wallet — quick, surprising, and more valuable than you expected.

And keep watch of your keister-kicks (back pockets, if you don’t have the Whiz know).

Onto the next chapter.

Title	The Whiz Mob and the Grenadine Kid
Author	Colin Meloy
Genre	Historical Fiction, Adventure
Form	Prose
Page Count	413
Favorite Quote	“‘I’m twelve years old, sir,’ said Charlie. ‘Do I look like I take gin in my grenadine?’”
Rating	10/10