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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