Books about art-related crime make up a growing true-crime subgenre. It’s sometimes hard to find them — are they in True Crime or Art & Architecture at B&N? (answer: sometimes both) — and they’re not all created equal.
Here’s a list of the art-related crime books I’ve read and reviewed recently. I’ve left off any that I haven’t reviewed; maybe I’ll add them later. I have several others in my TBR pile (including a couple big titles I just haven’t needed until now), which never seems to get smaller. Some are niche books or textbooks. I’ll also salt in some other true-crime books that aren’t art-related but are useful to explain some of the other subjects I write about in the DeWitt Agency Files series. Click on the title to get my review of the book.
If you have any suggestions for titles or blogs I could check out, drop me a note on the Contact / Press page. Thanks, and happy reading.
ART CRIME
The Art Detective, by Philip Mould
The Art of the Con, by Anthony Amore
The Art of the Steal, by Christopher Mason
Caveat Emptor, by Ken Perenyi
Chasing Aphrodite, by Jason Fletch & Ralph Frammolino
Crime and the Art Market, by Riah Pryor
False Impressions, by Thomas Hoving
Hot Art, by Joshua Knelman
Money Laundering Through Art, by Fausto Martin De Sanctis
Museum of the Missing, by Simon Houpt
Priceless, by Robert K. Wittman
Provenance, by Laney Salisbury & Aly Sujo
The Rape of Europa, by Lynn Nicholas (no review available)
The Rescue Artist, by Edward Dolnick
Sacred and Stolen, by Gary Vikan
The Scientist and the Forger, by Jehane Ragai
Stealing Rembrandts, by Anthony Amore & Tom Mashberg
CRIME, BUT NOT ART (mostly)
A Burglar’s Guide to the City, by Geoff Manaugh
The Confidence Game, by Anna Konnikova
Crime School: Money Laundering, by Chris Mathers
Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy, by Moisés Naím
The Investigator, by Michael Knox
The Washing Machine, by Nick Kochan
ART, BUT NOT CRIME (mostly)
Big Bucks: The Explosion of the Art Market in the 21st Century, by Georgina Adam
Ceramics of Southeast Asia: Their Dating and Identification, by Roxanna Brown
Dark Side of the Boom: The Excesses of the Art Market in the 21st Century, by Georgina Adam
Seven Days in the Art World, by Sarah Thornton
The Supermodel and the Brillo Box: Back Stories and Peculiar Economics from the World of Contemporary Art, by Don Thompson
The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art, by Don Thompson