The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft
Ulrich Boser, 2009
HarperCollins
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061451843
Summary
One museum, two thieves, and the Boston underworld—the story behind the lost Gardner masterpieces and the art detective who swore to get them back.
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, hundreds of interviews, and a $5-million reward, not a single painting has been recovered. Worth a total of $500 million, the missing masterpieces have become the Holy Grail of the art world and one of the nation's most extraordinary unsolved mysteries.
Art detective Harold Smith worked on the theft for years, and after his death, reporter Ulrich Boser inherited his case files. Traveling deep into the art underworld, Boser explores Smith's unfinished leads and comes across a remarkable cast of characters, including the brilliant rock 'n' roll art thief; the golden-boy gangster who professes his innocence in rhyming verse; the deadly mobster James "Whitey" Bulger; and the Boston heiress Isabella Stewart Gardner, who stipulated in her will that nothing should ever be changed in her museum, a provision followed so closely that the empty frames of the stolen works still hang on the walls.
Boser eventually cracks one of the biggest mysteries of the case and uncovers the identities of the men who robbed the museum nearly two decades ago. A tale of art and greed, of obsession and loss, The Gardner Heist is as compelling as the stolen masterpieces themselves. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Ulrich Boser has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Smithsonian magazine, Slate, and many other publications. He has served as a contributing editor at U.S. News and World Report and is the founding editor of The Open Case, a crime magazine and web community. He lives in Washington, D.C. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
The Gardner Museum in Boston is a monument to the idiosyncrasies of the rich. A replica of a Venetian palazzo, it embodies the vision of Isabella Stewart Gardner, who built a world-class art collection and displayed it her way....[In 1990] thieves dressed as cops faked their way inside and made off with a Rembrandt, a Vermeer and other paintings valued at over $500 million. Ulrich Boser presents his solution to the mystery: The culprits were the minions of Boston-area gangsters. But loose ends remain, notably the whereabouts of the paintings. It can't be easy to dispose of such well-known art works, and a recent federal law has added to the complexity. As a lawyer explained to Boser, "If someone buys the Gardner Rembrandt fifty years down the road, they can still be prosecuted."
Washington Post
By Boser's accounting, every cat burglar between Boston and Dublin has a bead on the missing masterpieces. To his credit, the book is a thrill despite the frustrating nature of the investigation, in which he painstakingly tracks audacious leads from mendacious thugs only to arrive at dead ends. And a few dead suspects. And to be sure, no art. Still, Boser does turn up some new evidence and makes a conclusive case for the identity of the thieves who did the job. The mystery remains unsolved, but the case is reinvigorated in its retelling by a man who fully appreciates the value of the masterpieces and the magnitude of the criminal conspiracy that carried them away in the night.
Kriston Capps - Guardian (UK)
Boser has done a public service in exposing the real world of art theft: It isn't about glamour and culture — it's about greed, violence and irreparable, maddening loss.
USA Today
Boser has produced a captivating portrait of the world's biggest unsolved art theft.
Wall Street Journal
In the early morning hours of March 18, 1990, thieves posing as cops entered Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and left with a haul unrivaled in the art world, including three Rembrandts and a Vermeer, valued today at $600 million. Boser, a contributing editor at U.S. News and World Report, turned amateur sleuth after the death of a legendary independent fine arts claims adjuster, Harold Smith, who was haunted by the Gardner robbery. Boser carried on Smith's work, pursuing leads as varied as James "Whitey" Bulger's Boston mob and the IRA. Along the way, he visited felons-including the notorious art thief Myles Connor-and Bob Wittman, the FBI's only art theft undercover agent. Boser's rousing account of his years spent collecting clues large and small is entertaining enough to make readers almost forget that, after 18 years, the paintings have still not been found: the museum is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to their return.
Publishers Weekly
An enjoyable true-crime tale accessible to lovers of art and whodunits alike.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Gardner Heist:
1. What possessed Boser to take up where Harold Smith left off?
2. Boser has said that art theft is more mundane, far less glamorous, than Hollywood portrayals. What does he mean? What is he referring to?
3. Talk about Isabella Stewart Gardner. What kind of person is she? How did she go about collecting her masterworks? What motivates someone like Gardner to spend such an immense fortune on original art?
4. Describe the underworld that Boser penetrates in his search for clues. Talk about those who inhabit that murky world— Whitey Bluger, Slab Murphy, and Myles Connor. Who are more distrubing—the criminals or the hardnosed, often corrupt, law enforcers who prusue them?
5. Dectectives sometimes turn to psychics and paranormals to help with a case, especially when they've hit wall. Can those individuals offer genuine help in solving crimes?
6. What new evidence does Boser bring to light? And what are his ultimate conclusions about who perpetrated the robbery? Does he build a convincing case?
7. Were you frustrated by the dead ends...and ultimately by Boser's inability to crack the case and recover the paintings? Or do you find invigorating the fact that the theft remains unsolved—one of those intriguing mysteries of life?
8. Talk about what the loss of some of the world's artistic masterpieces means. Do you find a $500 million theft of valuable art a despicable crime...or an intriguing mystery? How do you value that loss in the overall scheme of the world around you? (Cool question.)
9. Nearly 20 years have passed since the art heist at the Gardner museum. Do you think the case will ever be solved? Will the paintings ever be found?
10. If the paintings cannot be shown in public, even 50 years after the heist, for what purpose would someone buy them?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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