Every so often, high-profile art theft makes headlines, and every so often, a slew of books on a similar subject are published within months of each other. This spring will see both, when four nonfiction works about art thefts are published. Two concern the theft of perhaps the most famous painting of all time, the Mona Lisa; the other two overlap in their coverage of the Gardner heist, a 1990 burglary in Boston. In case readers don't get their fill, Free Press will publish Hot Art by Joshua Knelman in March 2010—which might just serve as a wrap to the whole show. It's being billed as a “behind-the-scenes exposé of the multibillion-dollar world of international art crime.”

The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft by Ulrich Boser (Collins, Mar.) The Art of the Heist: Confessions of a Master Art Thief, Rock-and-Roller, and Prodigal Son by Myles J. Connor Jr. with Jenny Siler (Collins, May) The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler (Little, Brown, Apr.) Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa by R.A. Scotti (Knopf, Apr.)
What
In 1990, two men dressed as policemen stole 12 masterpieces, including a Vermeer, three Rembrandts and five Degas. A Mayflower descendant and Irish cop, Myles Connor was a career thief, snagging among other works, a Rembrandt in broad daylight. In 1911, detective Alphonse Bertillon tracks numerous suspects in his hunt to find the Mona Lisa. Among the suspects in the Mona Lisa's theft: avant-garde poet Guillaume Apollinaire and his friend Pablo Picasso.
Where
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston Regional museums and national institutions like the Met The Louvre, Paris The Louvre, Paris
Who knew?
Says Boser, “People who steal art are run-of-the-mill crooks—aging drug dealers, out-of-work bank robbers, ex-cons looking to pay the rent. They want the cash. They steal art because it's easy.” Connor is widely suspected to be the mastermind behind the Gardner heist (mentioned above). Film rights to his memoir just sold. The Hooblers, a married couple, have published more than 50 books. In 2001, Tom appeared on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and with help from Dorothy (who was his phone-a-friend) won $500,000. “Mona Lisa doesn't get around much anymore,” writes Scotti. “France now has a law forbidding her from leaving the country.” And “her own personal bodyguards protect her from a repeat of 1911.”