The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World’s Largest Unsolved Art Theft by Ulrich Boser

Boser’s approach to telling the story of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist is just right. He sets the scene of the night of the crime with all the known details in place and adding in all the clues the experts have. This gives the reader the feeling of an insider, getting our interest piqued and developing our attachment to the artwork.

Released February 24, 2009

Boser’s approach to telling the story of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist is just right. He sets the scene of the night of the crime with all the known details in place and adding in all the clues the experts have. This gives the reader the feeling of an insider, getting our interest piqued and developing our attachment to the artwork.

He weaves in the museum background, a brief history of the world of art theft and museum security standards and glimpses of the adventures of artwork once it’s on the lam. Boser manages to make it both educational and exciting – all the background provided makes the details of the Gardner heist more interesting.

Toward the end of the book, Boser makes the ludicrous decision to solve the crime on his own.  His attempt, which mostly consisted of talking to untrustworthy “connections” and scoping out Irish bars for Whitey Bulger, came off as a childish foray into art crime superhero-ism. Still, it demonstrated how wrapped up an author can get in the story being researched.

If you are an art lover, if you enjoy a real-life unsolved mysteries, you are definitely going to enjoy this book.   — Sara Wedell, Adult Services Librarian

Big Boy Rules: America’s Mercenaries Fighting in Iraq by Steven Fainaru

Released November 10, 2008

“For this mordant dispatch from one of the Iraq War’s seamiest sides, Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post correspondent Fainaru embedded with some of the thousands of private security contractors who chauffeur officials, escort convoys and add their own touch of mayhem to the conflict. Exempt from Iraqi law and oversight by the U.S. government, which doesn’t even record their casualties, the mercenaries, Fainaru writes, play by Big Boy Rules—which often means no rules at all as they barrel down highways in the wrong direction, firing on any vehicle in their path. (His report on the Blackwater company, infamous for killing Iraqi civilians and getting away with it, is meticulous and chilling.) Fainaru’s depiction of the mercenaries’ crassness and callousness is unsparing, but he sympathizes with these often inexperienced, badly equipped hired guns struggling to cope with a dirty war. Nor is he immune to the romance of the soldier of fortune, especially in his somewhat bathetic portrait of Jon Coté, Iraq War veteran and lost soul who joined the fly-by-night Crescent Security Group and was kidnapped by insurgents. Fainaru’s vivid reportage makes the mercenary’s dubious motives and chaotic methods a microcosm of a misbegotten war.” Publisher’s Weekly

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

Released August 5, 2008

“This exquisite tour de force explores the dark roots of polygamy and its modern-day fruit in a renegade cult…Ebershoff (The Danish Girl) brilliantly blends a haunting fictional narrative by Ann Eliza Young, the real-life 19th “rebel” wife of Mormon leader Brigham Young, with the equally compelling contemporary narrative of fictional Jordan Scott, a 20-year-old gay man…With the topic of plural marriage and its shattering impact on women and powerless children in today’s headlines, this novel is essential reading for anyone seeking understanding of the subject.” Publishers Weekly

All We Know of Heaven by Jacquelyn Mitchard

Released: May 1, 2008

“Riveting, compassionate and psychologically nuanced, Mitchard’s (Now You See Her ) second YA novel reimagines the macabre true story that is also the subject of the current bestselling memoir Mistaken Identity. She brings to her treatment an emotional depth that balances the sensational plot: after a car crash, a 16-year-old lies in a coma, wondering at first if she is dead; meanwhile, friends and family bury the girl’s best friend, a victim of the same accident. Weeks pass before the girl emerges from the coma and begins trying to say her name—and before various inconsistencies alert the hospital staff that the girls have been misidentified. Both major and minor characters move through this novel with their histories succinctly evoked: readers will understand how each arrives at this shocking moment, and they will marvel at the acuity with which Mitchard moves them forward. As the survivor, Maureen, recovers—incompletely, as she is left with brain injuries—she struggles to redefine herself in the wake of powerful mixed reactions from her small-town community, including both sets of parents, reactions that intensify as she and her late friend’s boyfriend explore previously submerged feelings for each other. Utterly gripping, and far more compelling than the factual version. Ages 12–up.”  Publishers Weekly