cover image Among Thieves

Among Thieves

David Hosp, . . Grand Central, $24.99 (373pp) ISBN 978-0-446-58015-1

The real-life 1990 theft of paintings currently valued at half a billion dollars from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and never recovered provides the backdrop for Hosp's overly ambitious art world thriller. In the present day, lawyer Scott Finn thinks he's just helping an old friend, Devon Malley, out of a jam by representing Malley after Malley is arrested for knocking off a high-end clothing store. But when prominent members of Boston's criminal underworld, all of whom have connections to Malley, start turning up dead and show hallmarks of IRA-style torture, Finn realizes he has a much bigger case on his hands. Twenty years earlier, Devon helped rob the Gardner museum along with ex-IRA operative Liam Kilbranish, who has returned to exact revenge on the people he believes hid the paintings. Despite the promising premise, Hosp (Innocence ) quickly gets mired in myriad needless side plots, all of which distract from the allure of the famous heist. (Jan.)