A young adult crime/thriller novel by Kristen Miller, How To Lead A Life Of Crime follows young thief Flick as he becomes involved in the dark and twisted world of Mandel Academy, an exclusive New York City private school that trains elite criminals.
How To Lead A Life Of Crime was nominated for an Edgar Award for Young Adult Fiction in 2013.
How To Lead A Life Of Crime provides examples of...
- Academy of Evil: Mandel Academy. Like you wouldn't believe. Classes include Partnering With Corrupt Regimes, Industrial Espionage, and Polluting for Profit.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Joi, a sweet Friend to All Children, proves herself to be quite ruthless when she joins Mandel Academy and quickly rises to the top.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Gwendolyn seems innocuous, for a star student at an Academy of Evil, at first. Flick learns the hard way that she's not.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: The evil are unquestionably evil; the good, ostensibly our hero Flick, is still ruthless, violent, vengeful, and criminal.
- The Butcher: Vladimir Mingulov is called The Butcher of Brighton Beach.
- Closed Circle: Mandel Academy. As an added bonus, it's also designed to be inescapable.
- Creepy Basement: There's a morgue/Mad Scientist Laboratory down there.
- Disposable Sex Worker: No one really seems to care when Felix dies.
- Fictional Document: There's a whole series of them at the end of the book, chronicling what occurs before and after the events of the novel for various characters.
- Five-Finger Discount: Flick is a pickpocket.
- Ghost in the Machine: Flick has a personified conscience he calls Peter Pan (revealed to be his brother Jude, who he nicknamed Peter Pan as a child) who he converses with.
- I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Flick blames himself for Jude's death, and at least initially, it's his motivation to become a talented criminal and seek vengeance on his father.
- At Mandel Academy, it's the death of Lucas among many others that Flick takes most personally.
- Insane Equals Violent: The entire book is incredibly guilty of this. In particular, Ivan, Gwendolyn, and Mandel take this trope to the extreme.
- It's Not You, It's My Enemies: Flick cuts off things (rather rudely) with Joi because not only is a girlfriend holding him back from his ruthless pursuit of revenge, but because involving himself with Mandel Academy puts all of his loved ones at risk, more so than he even imagines at the time.
- It's Personal: Flick's beef with his father is very personal.
- Kill the Cutie: Jude. Interestingly, this happens before the events of the novel, yet he exists as a Posthumous Character whose circumstances are only revealed and clarified towards the end.
- Love Is a Weakness: Flick ascribes to this, and tries unsuccessfully to subdue his personified conscience and wistful pining for Joi.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: All of the Academy's internal murders are framed to look like suicides.
- Meaningful Rename: Flick gets one after running away to live on the streets, abandoning his family and, by extension of ridding himself of any association with them, his name.
- Everyone at Mandel Academy receives and goes by a pseudonym of Only One Name. Ostensibly a way to start fresh and create new identities, it comes across as a dehumanization technique (justifiably so, given what we learn about Mandel Academy). For many characters, we don't learn their real names until the addendum of fictional documents at the end of the book.
- Offing the Offspring: Flick's father kills his son Jude.
- Phantom Thief: Flick is called so because all it takes is a "flick" of his wrist for him to liberate you of your possessions.
- Satellite Love Interest: Joi exists almost exclusively as an object of Flick's affection, admiration, and pining.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Jude is the perky, lovable idealist, Flick is the brooding, unfavored cynic.
- Spirit Advisor: "Peter Pan"/ Jude could be this. As Flick's personified conscience as well as a Posthumous Character, he could also be the Ghost in the Machine or even an Imaginary Friend. Flick doesn't even know.
- Street Smart: Everyone at the academy is a hardened criminal, so naturally this is a requirement.
- That Man Is Dead: Flick casts aside his identity as the wealthy military school student Jonathan Brennan for one his street-smart criminal persona of Flick.
- Villainous Lineage: Both Flick and his father are ruthless, talented criminals in different ways.
