blissfulbookworm 's review for:

The Art Thief by Noah Charney

2.0

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Actual rating: 2.5 stars. I really wanted to like this book. After all, I checked it out based on how much I enjoyed The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro and The Art Detective:Fakes, Frauds, and Finds and the Search for Lost Treasure by Philip Mould. The book started off promisingly with the theft of a Caravaggio from a small Italian church and the possible forgery of a Russian masterpiece, White on White. But then the book introduces WAY too many characters (think double digits), some barely indistinguishable from each other. It also tries too hard with plot twists and jumping back and forth between different narratives that it never really gelled with me. If anything, what I enjoyed most was the background info provided on the artists and their methods, which is not surprising since Noah Charney is an actual art historian. Alas--maybe Charney should have just stuck with what he knows instead of delving into fiction?