The founder of the FBI’s Art Crime Team finally reveals the secrets behind 20 years of heists and apprehensions in . . .
PRICELESS
How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures
By ROBERT K. WITTMAN with John Shiffman
A rollicking memoir…PRICELESS can read at times, not unpleasantly, as if an art history textbook got mixed up at the printer with a screenplay for ‘The Wire.’”
—New York Times
“Genius... Riveting.... Should be a TV series.”
—Los Angeles Times
"Riveting... superbly crafted... absolutely, hands down, the best book ever written on art crime.”
—Associated Press
“Wittman – who founded the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s art crime team – paints a portrait of his former employer, and it isn’t a pretty one…If you want to build a case for FBI reform, Wittman’s story is priceless…each chapter concludes with a com-on that keeps you reading.”
—Christian Science Monitor
“Riveting.”
—Art & Antiques
“Entertaining and surprisingly informative…a lively account of art thieves and the man who pursued them.”
—Kirkus Reviews
The Wall Street Journal called him “a living legend.” The Times of London dubbed him “the most famous art detective in the world.”
Now, in PRICELESS: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures (Crown Publishers; June 2010), Robert K. Wittman, the founder of the FBI’s Art Crime Team, pulls back the curtain on his remarkable career for the first time.
Rising from humble roots as the son of an antiques dealer, Wittman built a twenty-year law-enforcement career that was nothing short of extraordinary. Armed with a scholar’s passion, a con man’s smile, and a daredevil’s nerves, he worked undercover to catch art thieves, scammers, and black-market traders in Paris and Philadelphia, Rio and Santa Fe, Miami and Madrid.
By the FBI’s accounting, Wittman saved hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of art and antiquities. He says the statistic isn’t important. After all, who’s to say what is worth more—a Rembrandt self-portrait or an American flag carried into battle? They’re both priceless.
Among the cases detailed in PRICELESS are:
• Going undercover in Madrid to extract $50 million worth of Goya and Brueghel paintings from a Spanish mobster
• Catching an appraiser turned con man who used PBS’s Antiques Roadshow to steal countless heirlooms from war heroes’ descendants
• Rescuing the Rodin sculpture that launched the Impressionist movement
• A case that involved three countries, wire taps, Hollywood mobsters, and a trio of punks from Iraq, which resulted in the rescue of two Renoirs and a Rembrandt worth $40 million
• Recovering the golden armor of an ancient Peruvian warrior king
• Saving an original copy of the Bill of Rights that had been believed lost for a hundred years
And in his final case, Wittman called on every bit of knowledge and experience in his arsenal to tackle his greatest challenge: working undercover to track the criminals behind the century’s largest unsolved art crime, the $500-million-dollar theft from the Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston.
PRICELESS is a real-life international thriller to rival The Thomas Crown Affair, told by a man who has seen it all . . . and can finally reveal what he knows.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
ROBERT WITTMAN spent twenty years as an FBI special agent, where his accomplishments included the creation of the bureau’s Art Crime Team. He has recovered more than $225 million of stolen art and cultural property.
JOHN SHIFFMAN is an investigative reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He has won numerous writing awards and was a 2009 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
ABOUT THE BOOK
PRICELESS
How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures
By Robert K. Wittman with John Shiffman
Crown • On-sale date: June 1, 2010 • ISBN 978-0-307-46147-6 • Price: $25.00
To order copies of "Priceless", please visit: www.robertwittmaninc.com.
Robert Wittman will be providing a keynote address at the IFCPP Annual Conference on Tuesday, August 24, immediately followed by a book signing.
