by Michael Finkle
Read by Edoardo Ballerini & Michael Finkel
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Content: There might have been some mild swearing (and maybe an f-bomb or two? I don’t remember, honestly). It’s about art thieves, so if that causes any problems… It’s in the True Crime section of the bookstore.

This is the story of one of the greatest art thieves in history: Stéphane Breitwieser. He didn’t just steal one painting, he stole more than $1 billion of art, from a lot of regional museums, in the middle of the day. He never harmed anyone, and he never sold the art. Instead, he kept it in his attic rooms in his mother’s house where he and his girlfriend lived. And he just kept it because… he was in love with the art. He wanted to be surrounded by beauty. He called himself an art liberator, and maybe that was part of it. Part of it, though, was also the thrill he got from stealing, and in the end, it was an act of hubris that brought him down.

This was an absolutely wild story. It takes a bit to get used to Ballerini as a narrator, but once you settle into his rhythm, the story is absolutely captivating. Finkle – who sat down with Breitwieser for a series of interviews – depicts how Breitwieser and his girlfriends stole billions of dollars in art, and how they got caught (and what happened to the art afterward; let me just say that Breitwieser’s mother is probably involved, and it’s not pretty). It’s a fascinating tale, and it’s hard to believe the Breitwieser’s cohones. Seriously. But it’s a story that was ultimately gripping and wild to listen to.