THE MUSEUM HEIST

<p>In the early morning hours after St. Patrick’s Day 1990 two men disguised as policemen gain access to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum a stately four-story Italian mansion in the Fenway district of Boston. They handcuff the guards wrap their mouths with duct tape and proceed to commit the largest robbery in history. The stolen masterpieces including Vermeer’s The Concert a Degas a Manet and three irreplaceable Rembrandts are valued at half a billion dollars. Despite a $10 million reward and the combined efforts of the FBI Scotland Yard INTERPOL and the Canadian Mounted Police the treasured art is never recovered. Jump to twenty-five years later. Paris an ex-con classics professor and superbly gifted art forger is passing the time at a self-storage facility he bought in out-of-the-way New Mexico to earn a living while figuring out what to do next with his life. When a suspicious out-of-towner arrives to check on his belongings Paris’ curiosity gets the best of him. He breaks into the man’s storage unit only to find the stolen art now missing for a quarter of a century. With the $10 million in reward money under his belt Paris sets off for Boston to fulfill his dream of building a classical museum of his own. In order to help the eccentric Lieutenant Lowell nab the illusive thief Paris dives back into the world of obsession and deception which may send him back to prison. The Museum Heist based on the real-life robbery of the famed Gardner Museum is a fast-paced wily whodunit filled with intrigue romance and stimulating scholarship. Author Kameel Nasr an international adventurer and art connoisseur shines a penetrating light on the motives habits and sometimes less-than-noble intentions in the demi-monde of world-class art collecting. Along the way he’s created a wonderfully satisfying mystery novel for anyone interested in historical fiction. The Museum Heist takes you on a roller-coaster ride of suspense a meticulous portrait of the underbelly of the art world at its highest echelons.</p>