(From Amazon) Shortly after midnight on March 18, 1990, two men broke into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and committed the largest art heist in history. They stole a dozen masterpieces, including one Vermeer, three Rembrandts, and five Degas. But after thousands of leads—and a $5 million reward—none of the paintings have been recovered. Worth as much as $500 million, the missing masterpieces have become one of the nation’s most extraordinary unsolved mysteries.
Ulrich Boser, who has followed this case for decades, took over the investigation after Harold Smith, a famous art detective, passed away. As it was an obsession for Smith, so it became for Boser. Through his years of investigation, he is introduced to jaded FBI agents, many suspects (including Whitey Bulger), and the fascinating stories behind the stolen paintings.
I have always enjoyed heist films, and one of my favorites is “The Thomas Crown Affair”, so this book appealed to me instantly. I also recently watched an episode of “American Greed” and “Drunk History” that featured this case, so I was very interested in what had happened and where the investigation was going. As of right now, the case is still unsolved, but the book not only explains why that is, but also what the FBI, local police, and private investigators are doing now, twenty-three years later.