THE GARDNER HEIST : THE TRUE STORY OF THE WORLD'S LARGEST UNSOLVED ART THEFT
by Ulrich Boser

Isabella Stewart Gardner always dreamed, as a teenager, to be a collector of art masterpieces and have a place to display them. Fifty years later, her dream came true when a four-story palazzo was built, in Boston, and filled with paintings, sculptures, manuscripts, drawings and pieces of antiquity.
On March 18, 1990, two men broke into the museum and stole a Vermeer, three Rembrandts, and five Degas. It was the largest art heist in history.
Harold Smith was an art detective and he worked on the case for years. After he died, the author, Ulrich Boser, who is a reporter and editor of a crime magazine, tried to pick up where Smith left off. Boser explored the art underworld and met an extraordinary group of personalities. He eventually uncovers the names of the men who burglarized the museum.
The Gardner Heist is a terrific story. Even though the artwork has never been found, just reading about the potential leads is riveting. It's very well-researched with sources for every chapter. There's even a website : www.thegardnerheist.com for anyone interested in knowing more about the case or having information on the locations of the paintings.
Don't miss this one.
Highly recommended.

THE SECRET OF THE GREAT PYRAMID : HOW ONE MAN'S OBSESSION LED TO THE SOLUTION OF ANCIENT EGYPT'S GREATEST MYSTERY
by Bob Brier and Jean-Pierre Houdin

Of all the seven wonders of the world, only the pyramids still stand and there are one hundred and seven of them dispersed throughout Egypt. The largest one is the Great Pyramid, on the Giza Plateau. It's been photographed and analyzed through the centuries more than any other pyramid and yet mysteries still abound. Nobody knows how it was built. There is no documentation.
What is known is that it took twenty years and 25,000 men to construct it.
The author, Bob Brier, is an Egyptologist, who has researched pyramids and tombs in fifteen countries. He met Jean-Pierre Houdin, a French architect, who became obsessed with how the Great Pyramid was built, spending ten hours a day, on his computer, until he found the secret, unseen for 4,500 years.
The Secret of the Great Pyramid is a terrific story. Brier does a great job, effortlessly, weaving ancient and modern history together.
Highly recommended.

THE LAST DAYS OF THE ROMANOVS : TRAGEDY AT EKATERINBURG
by Helen Rappaport

There have been many books written about the Romanovs. Most of them were highly romanticized, with speculations, half-truths, not willing to discuss the flaws of the royal family.
Until now.
In The Last Days of the Romanovs, Helen Rappaport, a historian, gives the most detailed account of their final days. She draws on a wealth of archival evidence that has never been revealed before; the political climate between England and Germany during World War I; the frightening escalation of the Bolsheviks' reign of terror.
Meticulously researched and impossible to put down until the bloody end.
If you're a diehard Romanov follower, you don't want to miss this book.
Highly recommended.

TAKING AIM AT THE PRESIDENT : THE REMARKABLE STORY OF THE WOMAN WHO SHOT AT GERALD FORD
by Geri Spieler

The only woman to ever shoot a gun at a U.S. president, Sarah Jane Moore was not pictured to be an assassin. She was middle-aged, had a young son and was gracious and charming, but on her own terms. In actuality, Sarah Jane was a woman of many contradictions.
Moore grew up in a small, rural town in West Virginia with extremely strict parents. They had high expectations and were not warm and loving. While in high school, she got involved with the theater, which offered her an escape and with this background, eventually, she was able to mislead people by shifting identities.
She was married five times, abandoned her children (they ended up living with her parents), spied for the FBI and infiltrated radical underground movements of the 1960s and 1970s.
Geri Spieler has written a fascinating tale of an unknown woman, who almost killed a president. For twenty-seven years, the author met with Moore and corresponded with her, plus did her own research.
A good read.
Recommended.

PEACHES & DADDY : A STORY OF THE ROARING TWENTIES, THE BIRTH OF TABLOID MEDIA, AND THE COURTSHIP THAT CAPTURED THE HEART AND IMAGINATION OF THE AMERICAN PUBLIC
by Michael M. Greenburg

The Roaring Twenties was a decade of the Charleston, Prohibition, jazz, the Model T, flappers, women's suffrage, and dance marathons. Nice girls smoked cigarettes and hemlines rose. Victorian views were always being challenged. Against this backdrop was the sensational story of Peaches and Daddy.
Edward Browning was a fifty-one-year-old Manhattan millionaire, who fell in love, in 1926, with Frances Heenan, a fifteen-year-old high school student, who worked as a clerk and was never in school. They met at a sorority dance. It was a whirlwind courtship and thirty-seven days later, they were married. Within ten months, they would be in court filing for divorce.
Peaches & Daddy is a rollicking, good tale of a dysfunctional couple, who both loved being in the limelight and entertaining the masses with their eccentricities. The newspapers gobbled it up and tabloid journalism was born.
Michael Greenburg is a terrific writer and captures the "era of wonderful nonsense" effortlessly.
Black and white photographs are interspersed throughout the chapters, plus composographs from the tabloids. There's some great tidbits of fascinating trivia, also. Ed Sullivan is mentioned and how he got his start in the entertainment industry is unbelievable.
A totally enjoyable book.
Highly recommended.

LOOT : THE BATTLE OVER THE STOLEN TREASURES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD
by Sharon Waxman

Should the museums of the West own some of the greatest antiquities known to mankind or should they be returned to their countries of origin? The debate has been raging for decades. Of course, the way these artifacts have been acquired is not exactly kosher. For the past two hundred years, they have been illegally excavated, smuggled and sold to dealers and collectors, who sell the items to the museums. The unsuspecting public is then lied to by the written description (legend) next to the object, the origin never fully explained. Their motto is: "don't ask, don't tell."
Sharon Waxman visits the Met, the Louvre, the British Museum, the Getty and the countries from which the treasures were stolen from. She interviews curators, scholars, smugglers, prosecutors and journalists.
Loot is a tremendous read. Waxman has done a tremendous amount of research and effortlessly weaves history and reporting together.
There are black and white photographs interspersed throughout the chapters and eight pages of color photographs.
A book not to be missed.
Highly recommended.

THE ROAD TO RESCUE : THE UNTOLD STORY OF SCHINDLER'S LIST
by Mietek Pemper

Oskar Schindler was a Sudeten German businessman who ran a factory during World War II and saved 1200 Jewish prisoners, from death, by manipulating Nazi leaders. His name became popular due to Steven Spielberg's 1993 film Schindler's List, which was seen by millions of people. The movie, though, was based on historical inaccuracies and falsities of events that never could have happened.
Mietek Pemper, a Polish Jew, was an inmate at the Plaszow concentration camp, who was forced to work for the sadistic camp commandant, Amon Goth, as his personal stenographer. Because Pemper was also fluent in the German language, he was able to understand the inner workings of the Nazi bureaucracy. In this capacity, Pemper gained access to classified documents and passed them on to Schindler.
The Road to Rescue is a phenomenal expose of one man's exceptional courage, bravery, defiance and eventual victory against a monstrous and murderous regime.
The record is now set right.
Recommended.