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A review by bigpaw
The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft by Ulrich Boser
informative
mysterious
3.0
Definitely informative. There's something frustrating about reading an unsolved case, knowing you won't get a clear plot line and a nice wrap up solution at the end like a mystery novel. Not frustrating in a bad way, of course, just part of the reality. This is an interesting case and has captured the imagination of Bostonians for decades. I think at times, the reality kind of dampens these fights of fancy, like... oh it's not a romantic heist pulled off by some dashing master thief, it's just Boston underworld.
Maybe an unfair complaint about nonfiction that, by its nature, is going to be focused on certain people, but this book sorely lacked the perspective of women. Isabella Stewart Gardner herself obviously features at the center of the mystery, but beyond that, every lead pursued is one man after another. I understand that may be how this underworld works, but it seems either the author missed potential leads by not investigating and interviewing the women involved with these men, or he did investigate them and was remiss in not including that in the book.
There are occasional references to women as commodity that stood out to me and felt dehumanizing. Things like mentions of someone selling a painting for "a night with a prostitute" or how they'd be able to buy weapons, drugs, women, etc. and like... that's sex trafficking! That's rape! I didn't love how women were rarely featured as anyone important to the case, but victims of trafficking were dehumanized and referenced so casually. Not sure if I'm expressing this well, but it just felt very thoughtless.
Despite these complaints, I did find the book really interesting, and it's always cool to take a deeper look at something that I don't have a lot of knowledge about. Art is fascinating and money is so so fake.
Maybe an unfair complaint about nonfiction that, by its nature, is going to be focused on certain people, but this book sorely lacked the perspective of women. Isabella Stewart Gardner herself obviously features at the center of the mystery, but beyond that, every lead pursued is one man after another. I understand that may be how this underworld works, but it seems either the author missed potential leads by not investigating and interviewing the women involved with these men, or he did investigate them and was remiss in not including that in the book.
There are occasional references to women as commodity that stood out to me and felt dehumanizing. Things like mentions of someone selling a painting for "a night with a prostitute" or how they'd be able to buy weapons, drugs, women, etc. and like... that's sex trafficking! That's rape! I didn't love how women were rarely featured as anyone important to the case, but victims of trafficking were dehumanized and referenced so casually. Not sure if I'm expressing this well, but it just felt very thoughtless.
Despite these complaints, I did find the book really interesting, and it's always cool to take a deeper look at something that I don't have a lot of knowledge about. Art is fascinating and money is so so fake.