The Art Thief by Noah Charney

I just finished reading The Art Thief. I had heard it was good; but, like Kim, I tend to drag my feet sometimes when others say it's wonderful. The plot started out slowly, with the theft of several artworks - in Rome, Paris, and London. Seemingly unrelated, the plot thickens as inspectors, art historians, gallery & museum curators, art lovers, and forgers all get involved...and intermingled. If you like art history and a good mystery, this one is for you -- really! Noah Charney is a first-time author, but creates believable characters who speak with authority - probably because Charney himself is an authority: he is the founding director of the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art (ARCA) and holds degrees in art history. http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Noah-Charney

Any Four Women Could Rob the Bank of Italy

I just finished re-reading this book by Ann Cornelisen. Like most of Cornelisen's books, this is set in Italy and opens with two women discussing how, in a summer of kidnappings & robberies, they are just waved through roadblocks. They're indignant that Italian police assume that females are incapable of any premeditated crime. ''I say women are as innately evil and grasping or selfish as men and fully as criminal,'' one character says. ''They have a right to equal suspicion.'' The friends conclude that "any four women could rob the Bank of Italy, and the police would still go around looking for four men." What begins as a light-hearted comment evolves into one character developing the idea into a movie script. As she involves her friends in helping solve the challenges of the robbery, the entire idea changes from "what if we did?" to "let's do it," and eventually becomes a stunningly successful robbery of a mail train-leaving the perpetrators in a hilarious struggle with their own consciences and the local police. The conclusion is a satisfying surprise.

I reread this OP book because I remembered it as one I really enjoyed, but I couldn't remember the details of how the women pulled off the robbery and then righted the wrong. Once again, I enjoyed the women's ability to triumph over a men's world well before the more vocal feminist movement. I found many passages overly long and would have loved to edit them, but the descriptions of the land and the relaxed Italian way of life made me want to book a trip to the Tuscan countryside! All in all, a quick, satisfying read. No murders, no violence, no bad guys vs good guys -- just a good surprise mix of mystery and artful woman-power!

NYTimes article written at the time of the author's death in November 2003: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07E0D61438F937A25752C1A9659C8B63