The Art Thief by Michael Finkel

While I found the story itself fascinating, and the level of crimes committed and the resultant aftermath rather horrific in their way, several choices made by Finkel kept this from rising above ordinary.

A good bit of his nonfiction narrative leans into the overwrought, whether trying to complement or compete with the beauty of the stolen works of art, I'm unsure. The choice of present tense is beyond me — other than the typical gimmicky explanations — the utter relinquishment of control of his own story is nigh on unfathomable. Looking at the book in its entirety, as though it were actually unfolding in time as the book is read, makes no sense either for when the crimes take place or the resultant consequences we know occur.

In the end, though I appreciated the story and the depth Finkel reveals, he seems either reluctant to or to outright refuse to look at Breitwieser's thievery through a more critical and scrutinizing lens. His neutrality reeks of promises made to the subject in order to get this book approved, and is the weaker for it. Though he never seems to buy into the overly romantic notion that Breitwieser commits these acts through some desire to simply own art (because he admires it more than others) or even rescue it (anti-Indiana Jones, as it were: It doesn't belong in a museum!), he ends the novel with the barest of mentions of Breitwieser's actual acts of petty thievery. The unwillingness to both fully recognize these contradictions and to directly address the utter lack of self-awareness from which Breitwieser suffers, detracts from Finkel's credibility.

Audiobook, as narrated by Edoardo Ballerini: Ballerini did a great job of laying a great foundation and support to this nonfiction book that had flaws of its own.