In the early morning hours of March 18, 1990, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum experienced the greatest art theft in American history. Thirteen works were removed by a pair of thieves in an 81-minute operation, resulting in a loss now valued at a combined worth of over $1 billion.
The theft has been the subject of multiple books, articles, documentaries, and podcast episodes. Now, Geoffrey Kelly has written “Thirteen Perfect Fugitives: The True Story of the Mob, Murder, and the World’s Largest Art Heist,” a compelling but uneven new book on the subject. A former FBI special agent, Kelly led the Gardner investigation for 22 years.
