Review: 'The Art Thief'

How many books does it take before the stink of unethical journalism fades? If you're Michael Finkel, it appears to be three.

In 2002, Finkel was fired from the New York Times for creating a composite character in a story about enslaved children in Africa. His career was all but over until a strange-but-true coincidence opened a door: A man, on the lam after the murders of his wife and three children, pretended to be Finkel. Curious, the writer pursued the story. The result, "True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa," is an absorbing and meticulously reported investigation — and an explanation of where the author went wrong.

Finkel's next book, "The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit," followed the case of a man who walked into the woods and stayed there for 27 years until he was arrested for theft. As in "True Story," Finkel wrote about himself, including the New York Times debacle.

With "The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime and a Dangerous Obsession," Finkel steps away from all that, his path of redemption complete, it seems. His fascination with narcissistic outliers — Stéphane Breitwieser, "perhaps the most successful and prolific art thief who has ever lived" — is on display but the need to show how his subject's and his life overlap is gone. There are no traces of Finkel until the end, where he details his reporting. His colorful presence is missed.

That doesn't mean "The Art Thief" is any less engrossing. As the Bonnie and Clyde of the art world, Breitwieser and accomplice-girlfriend Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus are larger than life, confounding and, yes, obnoxious as they adhere to Breitwieser's "philosophy." He considers what he does to be liberating art: "He feels no remorse when he steals because museums, in his deviant view, are really just prisons for art."

Breitwieser takes only what stirs him emotionally, which is often, and "seldom the most valuable piece in the place." He doesn't sell anything but surrounds himself with it in an attic space in his mother's house, where he and Anne-Catherine "live in a treasure chest." Finkel ponders whether Breitwieser is somehow different because of this professed love of art, that maybe the thefts are something of an art, too. Or is he like any other art thief?

"The Art Thief" benefits from a built-in ticking clock as time runs out for Breitwieser and his girlfriend. Finkel controls the pace effortlessly, broadening and narrowing focus from the day-to-day of the thieves to the intricate plotting of their thefts and a history of art crime, as well as who steals and why. That combined with mounting dread for the artworks' fate makes for a heart-pounding read.

Maren Longbella is a Star Tribune copy editor who often reviews books.

'The Art Thief'

By: Michael Finkel.

Publisher: Knopf, 230 pages, $28.