This is a most intriguing mystery/thriller, using a real life art theft at a famous Boston art museum as the premise. Art lovers will thoroughly enjoy this story, which gives an authentic look into the world of fine art museums, galleries, artists, and high-stakes collecting, as well as art theft. Mystery lovers will enjoy the slow suspense, well drawn characters, and interplay of art and heist. The author brings in plenty true detail about the crime - the puzzling selection of art works stolen, the circumstances of the theft, and FBI suspicion of the Boston mafia's involvement.
I remember the shocking 1990 art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It is considered the largest art heist in the world and remains unsolved. This novel is a brilliant addition to the growing collection of interesting ideas on what could have happened. The true-life mystery persists, and the museum, to this day, has an entire page dedicated to the theft, with pictures of the stolen works, and a reward for their return.

In this book based around the Famous Art Theft from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston on 18th March 1990,the Author Carol Orange hooks & captures you from start to finish . Although the later left me with more questions especially about several of the stories main characters which includes Portia Malatesta the Art Dealer who while dealing with a very personal tragedy the suicide of the younger brother Antonia , with who she sat & shared many discussions with in front of & about the hidden depth of Dark & Light in Vermeer's The Concert , which ends up also being one of the stolen paintings. Her research about the various stolen Paintings made me google them & look at them again as some I hadn't seen since studying Art at both School & College.Portia draws on her own views about several of the stolen paintings to build a picture of the Thief who has stolen these works purely for his own gratification even though it will end with his wife Maria Alfonso & their children Toto & Diana in grave danger.. When Portia helps the FBI by going to Medellin , capital of the mountainous province of Antioquia in Colombia. Portia has worked in this City earlier in her life & speaks Spanish , plus she has contacts one the most important being a fellow Gallery owner the elegant Colombine Munoz, & it's through her contacts she finds out where the stolen Paintings are. I would highly recommend this book to other readers on so many different levels ,even though it left me hungry for more information on some of it's characters. So it is worth every one of the Five Stars I have given it.