The New York Times Book Review - Jonathon Keats
More than just a summation of all that's publicly known about the case—from the thieves' false mustaches to the F.B.I.'s sting operations—Kurkjian's book is an impressive attempt to solve the crime by reconsidering the evidence…What makes Kurkjian's book so gripping is…an accomplished investigator's sense of open-minded humility.
From the Publisher
More than just a summation of all that's publicly known about the case-from the thieves' false mustaches to the F.B.I.'s sting operation—Kurkjian's book is an impressive attempt to solve the crime by reconsidering the evidence...gripping."—New York Times Book Review
a cast of characters that would make Martin Scorsese swoon in admiration. There are so many crime-world figures with their fingers in this story that the book is like a 'GoodFellas'/'The Departed' double feature...Kurkjian constructs a thrilling narrative... A great mystery story well told.—Boston Globe
If you want to go looking for the lost Gardner horde (and collect the $5-million reward the gallery offers for its return), there's no better place to start than the pages of Master Thieves. The museum (and the FBI) could use the help.—Winnipeg Free Press
From the Publisher - AUDIO COMMENTARY
"[E]ngrossing real-life crime story." —Kirkus
APRIL 2015 - AudioFile
The 13 artworks by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and other masters stolen in 1990 are still missing from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The author writes about 20 years of looking into this "uniquely Boston" case. Mike Chamberlain narrates Kurkjian's keen descriptions and observations with a comfortable feel. Rather than the excitement of an investigation, his narration gives listeners a feeling of the day-to-day aspects of being inside the case. Listeners will start to feel they know everyone—from the security guards who were on duty to the detectives and the Mob figures who've joined the investigation. "Boston's last best secret" doesn't get answered, but Chamberlain brings listeners in on the workings of the city. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2015-01-04
A reporter investigates a notorious art heist.In 1990, two thieves made their way into Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and fled with 13 artworks, worth $500 million. Despite the FBI's ongoing investigation, the thieves were never caught, and the art remains missing. Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe investigative reporter Kurkjian worked on the story when it first broke, and in his fast-paced, though sometimes repetitious, debut book, he recounts the heist, the official investigation and his own probing into the case. Security was lax at the museum, making it possible for two men, dressed in police uniforms, to gain entry, secure the guards with duct tape and invade the galleries. Shattering protective glass, they cut paintings from their frames and left without detection. The FBI took control immediately, refusing to involve the Massachusetts State Police or the Boston police, which the author sees as a crucial mistake. Mob involvement was suspected from the start, and local authorities, as one Boston policeman put it, "knew every wise guy in the city and had some reliable informants." As the case grew colder, the handful of FBI men assigned to it was reduced; three months after the heist, only one agent supervised. The author reveals the "Hollywood-style deal-making" used by the FBI to try to get mobsters to talk, but their efforts repeatedly failed. In 2013, after the Boston Marathon bombing, the head of the FBI's Boston office tried to get the public's help in identifying artwork they may have seen or tips on the perpetrators, but nothing emerged. Based on interviews with scores of mob bosses, gang members, their wives, girlfriends, family members and lawyers, as well as with policemen and other reporters, Kurkjian believes he knows who did it. He has shared his findings with the FBI, and they come as the climax to this engrossing real-life crime story.
