A MILLION TO ONE

Four young women board the Titanic to steal a rare, gem-studded copy of the Rubaiyat, the classic book of Persian poetry.

It doesn’t take long for Josefa, a thrill-seeking Dublin thief, to select her crew. Croatian Violet, who wishes to reunite with her younger brother at home, has a natural talent for acting and gathering information. Emilie, a skilled painter and forger, is reluctant to take apart the Rubaiyat for profit but is swayed by the thought of using the money from selling the individual jewels to travel to Haiti, her birth country, and visit her deceased mother’s family. Hinnah from Karachi is the youngest of the group, and she’s eager to leave a thankless job at the circus and put her contortionist abilities to better use aboard the Titanic by sneaking through circulation vents and into locked cabins. Stolen tickets and false identities get the four onto the famously unsinkable ship, where they must nab the priceless volume before it arrives in America. While the planning and execution of the heist keep the story ticking along, the action and excitement really escalate in the latter half of the book. Earlier it’s the shifting dynamics between the girls that build tension as brief chapters in alternating perspectives reveal conflicting interests, hidden motives, and mutual pining. A countdown in the chapter headings adds a sense of urgency—will the girls succeed before time runs out?

A character-driven story that builds to a dramatic end.