One of the inherent occupational risks of a life spent in professional bookselling is that, after a while, a person can get kind of jaded. You might find yourself thinking in terms of which books “need” your recommendation in order to find readers, and which books seem to recommend themselves. This is a dangerous and fallible little logic trap, of course, but with only so many hours in the day, and so many books, it’s an easy one to fall into.
If I were to follow this line of thinking, I probably wouldn’t be writing about the book I’m writing about here. It seems like it’s been featured everywhere in the week or so since it’s been released. But I have to tell you: there’s a reason that people have been talking about The Art Thief by Michael Finkel.
That reason, simply put, is that it’s fascinating.
The Art Thief follows the exploits of Stéphane Breitwieser, a studious, intense young Frenchman who, during an eight-year stretch from the mid-nineties into the early twenty-first century, stole more than three hundred pieces from museums around Europe. He did so in broad daylight, in occupied museums (sometimes with security guards in the same room), with no violence, no specialized equipment, and no remorse.
Breitwieser’s thefts—including works by some very famous Renaissance artists—had a sum total value that was estimated to be in the billions, but he never sold a single piece. Instead, he saw himself as the rightful caretaker of the art he stole, displaying it in his room in the tiny attic of his mother’s house.
Every one of his hundreds of crimes was seemingly compulsive, increasingly and exponentially unsustainable (how do you even store hundreds of pieces of stolen art?), and absurdly risky. Yet Breitwieser—a loner who rarely socialized—had help, including from his longtime girlfriend, who served as a lookout.
Why would a person with such a passion for art brazenly steal so much of it, risking damage and removing it from public view? Why would the people closest to him allow his behavior to go unchecked? And how on earth did he get away with it for so many years? While not all of these questions have easy answers, Finkel—whose previous book, The Stranger In The Woods, was also an examination of a singular and idiosyncratic mind—offers an incisive, curious, and truly compassionate investigation of Breitwieser’s life and actions.
My partner Emma recently suggested that The Art Thief would make a great beach read. She was right, as usual: Finkel’s book is fast-paced, nearly electric, and dosed with a level of suspense that keeps a reader continually wanting just one more chapter (all this without a single moment of mortal peril). I almost wish I’d saved it for an upcoming beach trip. But then, of course, I wouldn’t be writing this.
Sam Kaas and Emma Nichols own and run the Norwich Bookstore.