The Gardner Heist by Ulrich Boser
Ulrich Boser . Unknown Year . English
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.After the death of famed art detective Harold Smith, reporter Ulrich Boser decided to take up the case. Exploring Smith's unfinished leads, Boser travels deep into the art underworld and comes across a remarkable cast of characters, including a brilliant rock 'n' roll thief, a gangster who professes his innocence in rhyming verse, and the enigmatic late Boston heiress Isabella Stewart Gardner herself. Boser becomes increasingly obsessed with the case and eventually uncovers startling new evidence about the identities of the thieves. A tale of art and greed, of obsession and loss, The Gardner Heist is as compelling as the stolen masterpieces themselves.
Categories: Art & Design
About the Author
I'm a best-selling author and a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress. I just finished up a book that looks at the new science of learning. Titled "Learn Better," the book takes a broad look at how people can gain skills more effectively. The book is deeply researched, and as part of my reporting, I took basketball lessons from a former Harlem Globetrotter, spent time with the nation's foremost ER room doctor, and profiled the man who used some of the recent learning research to dominate the game show Jeopardy. I'm fortunate to have received some excellent early reviews. Publisher's Weekly called the book "engaging" and "thought-provoking," while author Walter Isaacson said the book was "alternately humorous, surprising, and profound.” Before the Center, I was a contributing editor for U.S. News & World Report. My work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. In February 2009, HarperCollins published my book The Gardner Heist, which examines the 1990 theft of a dozen masterpieces from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. I can be reached at ulrich @ ulrichboser.com.
