The Art Thief

I finished 'The Art Thief' by Noah Charney last night. I'm not sure why I bought it in the first place but it was worth reading. A complex plot of cross and double cross in the world of Fine Art with lots of fascinating information about how to steal paintings. Not just about how to steal them but also about how to fake them and why you might want to. Such books will always be compared favourably or unfavourably with the Da Vinci code, and this may have been inspired by it. 'The Art Thief' was just as complex but written in a more literary style with paintings going missing in Italy, France and England. There were detectives battling with minimal clues which included a thief who kept leaving references to bible verses at the scene of the crime, and a museum curator who is perhaps not all she seems. There was a neat twist towards the end which I won't give away but it is worth reading the book for this alone. I guessed part of what had gone on but not the final piece or the people involved. My only complaints are concerning the author's at times convoluted descriptions and his constant use of the word 'perpendicular' instead of 'vertical'. This grated on me after a while and certainly if I'd been editing the manuscript I would have suggested he cut the word completely. If it was used as referring to architecture that would have been fine, but it wasn't. Overall though an enjoyable book and I shall be looking out for his next one.