Book Review: The Art Thief

It's been a busy summer, so I've been reading a lot more audio books than print books.  Sometimes I look for an audio book that is on my list of books to read, and sometimes I just scan what is in.  The Art Thief by Noah Charney was one that looked intriguing recently. It starts out with the theft of an altar piece in Italy.  The thief repeatedly sets off the alarm but doesn't distrub anything so that the elderly priest assumes it is a malfunction and turns it off.  The next morning he notices that the painting is missing.  We then skip to Paris and learn that another painting has been stolen from a locked storage area.  The reader thinks they may be related (otherwise why would the author have mentioned them), but of course, the main characters are unaware of each other's loss. We then skip to London and get an art history lesson (which actually was very interesting, if a bit pedantic) from a professor who is whisked away by thugs in the middle of the lecture, and learn of yet another theft from a locked room in a musuem. How are these thefts (and near kidnappings) related?  The police in London and Paris try to sort it out.  With lots of mysterious characters and double crosses the plot is pretty interesting.  Some of the characters get a bit long-winded, and some seem to be there for comic relief, but it was a nice little mystery.

The Art Thief By Charney, Noah 2008-09 - Washington Square Press 9781416550310 Check Our Catalog Charney crafts an intellectual masterpiece--the mystery of three missing masterpieces that sends criminals and curators alike on a rollicking chase through the art galleries and auction houses of Europe. …More

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