The Art Thief

Don't miss this chance to read "The Art Thief" by Noah Charney. I'm listening to it on audio right now and the lilt of Simon Vance's voice is captivating. Slow and steady, the story is coming to life with the beauty of his British accent that makes me not want to turn off the CD!

(Can I also tell you that I'm totally taken in by the reference to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft, tragic, which happened during my junior year at BU in Boston. Check this out...

In March 1990, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, was robbed by two unknown men. The thieves removed works of art whose value has been estimated as high as $300 million. These include: Vermeer, The Concert; Rembrandt, A Lady and Gentleman in Black; Rembrandt, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee; Rembrandt, Self-Portrait; Govaert Flinck, Landscape with Obelisk; Manet, Chez Tortoni.

and http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/arttheft/northamerica/us/isabella/isabella.htm)

Here is the synopsis...

Rome: In the small Baroque church of Santa Giuliana, a magnificent Caravaggio altarpiece disappears without a trace in the middle of the night.

Paris: In the basement vault of the Malevich Society, curator Geneviéve Delacloche is shocked to discover the disappearance of the Society's greatest treasure, White-on-White by Suprematist painter Kasimir Malevich.

London: At the National Gallery of Modern Art, the museum's latest acquisition is stolen just hours after it was purchased for more than six million pounds.

In The Art Thief, three thefts are simultaneously investigated in three cities, but these apparently isolated crimes have much more in common than anyone imagines. In Rome, the police enlist the help of renowned art investigator Gabriel Coffin when tracking down the stolen masterpiece. In Paris, Geneviéve Delacloche is aided by Police Inspector Jean-Jacques Bizot, who finds a trail of bizarre clues and puzzles that leads him ever deeper into a baffling conspiracy. In London, Inspector Harry Wickenden of Scotland Yard oversees the museum's attempts to ransom back its stolen painting, only to have the masterpiece's recovery deepen the mystery even further. A dizzying array of forgeries, overpaintings, and double-crosses unfolds as the story races through auction houses, museums, and private galleries -- and the secret places where priceless works of art are made available to collectors who will stop at nothing to satisfy their hearts' desires. Full of fascinating art-historical detail, crackling dialogue, and a brain-teasing plot, Noah Charney's debut novel is a sophisticated, stylishthriller, as irresistible and multifaceted as a great work of art.

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