Priceless
How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures
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Narrated by:
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Mark Deakins
About this listen
The Wall Street Journal called him “a living legend”. The London Times dubbed him “the most famous art detective in the world”.
In Priceless, Robert K. Wittman, the founder of the FBI’s Art Crime Team, pulls back the curtain on his remarkable career for the first time, offering a real-life international thriller to rival The Thomas Crown Affair.
Rising from humble roots as the son of an antique dealer, Wittman built a 20-year career that was nothing short of extraordinary. He went undercover, usually unarmed, to catch art thieves, scammers, and black market traders in Paris and Philadelphia, Rio and Santa Fe, Miami and Madrid.
In this compelling memoir, Wittman fascinates with the stories behind his recoveries of priceless art and antiquities: The golden armor of an ancient Peruvian warrior king. The Rodin sculpture that inspired the Impressionist movement. The headdress Geronimo wore at his final pow-wow. The rare Civil War battle flag carried into battle by one of the nation’s first African-American regiments.
The breadth of Wittman’s exploits is unmatched: He traveled the world to rescue paintings by Rockwell and Rembrandt, Pissarro, Monet and Picasso, often working undercover overseas at the whim of foreign governments. Closer to home, he recovered an original copy of the Bill of Rights and cracked the scam that rocked the PBS series Antiques Roadshow.
By the FBI’s accounting, Wittman saved hundreds of millions of dollars worth of art and antiquities. He says the statistic isn’t important. After all, who’s to say what is worth more - a Rembrandt self-portrait or an American flag carried into battle? They're both priceless.
The art thieves and scammers Wittman caught run the gamut from rich to poor, smart to foolish, organized criminals to desperate loners. The smuggler who brought him a looted sixth-century treasure turned out to be a high-ranking diplomat. The appraiser who stole countless heirlooms from war heroes’ descendants was a slick, aristocratic con man. The museum janitor who made off with locks of George Washington's hair just wanted to make a few extra bucks, figuring no one would miss what he’d filched.
In his final case, Wittman called on every bit of knowledge and experience in his arsenal to take on his greatest challenge: working undercover to track the vicious criminals behind what might be the most audacious art theft of all.
©2010 Robert K. Wittman (P)2010 Random HouseListeners also enjoyed...
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Gangster Squad chronicles the true story of the secretive police unit that waged an anything-goes war to drive Mickey Cohen and other hoodlums from Los Angeles after WWII. In 1946, the LAPD launched the Gangster Squad with eight men who met covertly on street corners and slept with Tommy guns under their beds. But for two cops, all that mattered was nailing the strutting gangster Mickey Cohen. Sgt. Jack O’Mara was a square-jawed church usher, Sgt. Jerry Wooters a cynical maverick....
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Nothing Like the movie
- By KEITH on 02-21-13
By: Paul Lieberman
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The Map Thief
- The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps
- By: Michael Blanding
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Maps have long exerted a special fascination on viewers - both as beautiful works of art and as practical tools to navigate the world. But to those who collect them, the map trade can be a cutthroat business, inhabited by quirky and sometimes disreputable characters in search of a finite number of extremely rare objects.
Once considered a respectable antiquarian map dealer, E. Forbes Smiley spent years doubling as a map thief - until he was finally arrested slipping maps out of books in the Yale University library.
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A Study of the Strangeness of People
- By Carole T. on 12-10-14
By: Michael Blanding
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BMF
- The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family
- By: Mara Shalhoup
- Narrated by: L. Steven Taylor
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the early 1990s, Demetrius "Big Meech" Flenory and his brother, Terry "Southwest T", rose up from the slums of Detroit to build one of the largest cocaine empires in American history: the Black Mafia Family. They socialized with music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, did business with New York's king of bling Jacob "The Jeweler" Arabo, and built allegiances with rap superstars Young Jeezy and Fabolous. Yet even as BMF was attracting celebrity attention, its crew members struck fear in a city.
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Good listen
- By Lamont on 04-20-20
By: Mara Shalhoup
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Get Capone
- The Secret Plot That Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster
- By: Jonathan Eig
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 17 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Acclaimed journalist and bestselling author Jonathan Eig blows the lid off the Al Capone story. Based on never-before-seen government documents and newly discovered letters written by Al Capone himself, Get Capone presents America's greatest gangster as you’ve never seen him before.
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Get this book
- By Jonathan on 05-13-10
By: Jonathan Eig
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The Last Good Heist
- The Inside Story of the Biggest Single Payday in the Criminal History of the Northeast
- By: Wayne Worcester, Randall Richard, Tim White
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On August 14, 1975, eight daring thieves ransacked 148 massive safe-deposit boxes at a secret bank used by organized crime, La Cosa Nostra, and its associates in Providence, Rhode Island. The crooks fled with duffel bags crammed full of cash, gold, silver, stamps, coins, jewels, and high-end jewelry. The true value of the loot has always been kept secret, partly because it was ill-gotten to begin with, and partly because there was plenty of incentive to keep its true worth out of the limelight.
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Interesting but not the greatest story.
- By Russell on 07-21-17
By: Wayne Worcester, and others
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Hellhound on His Trail
- The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin
- By: Hampton Sides
- Narrated by: Hampton Sides
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On April 23, 1967, Prisoner #416J, an inmate at the notorious Missouri State Penitentiary, escaped in a breadbox. Fashioning himself Eric Galt, this nondescript thief and con man - whose real name was James Earl Ray -drifted through the South, into Mexico, and then Los Angeles, where he was galvanized by George Wallace's racist presidential campaign. With relentless storytelling drive, Sides follows Galt and King as they crisscross the country, one stalking the other, until the crushing moment at the Lorraine Motel.
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History Comes Alive
- By L. Lyter on 06-29-10
By: Hampton Sides
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The Last Gangster
- From Cop to Wiseguy to FBI Informant: Big Ron Previte and the Fall of the American Mob
- By: George Anastasia
- Narrated by: Chris Monteiro
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
As a cop, Ron Previte was corrupt. As a mobster, he was brutal. And in his final role, as a confidential informant to the FBI, Previte was deadly. The Last Gangster is his story—the story of the last days of the Philadelphia Mob, and of the clash of generations that brought it down once and for all. Convinced that the honor of the "business" was gone, he became the FBI's secret weapon in an intense and highly personalized war on the Philadelphia mob, operating with the same guile, wit, and stone-cold bravado that had made him a force in the underworld.
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Beautifully done! Exceptional.
- By none on 12-15-23
By: George Anastasia
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Bloodlines
- The True Story of a Drug Cartel, the FBI, and the Battle for a Horse-Racing Dynasty
- By: Melissa del Bosque
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In Bloodlines, Emmy and National Magazine award-winning journalist Melissa del Bosque follows Lawson and Perez's harrowing attempt to dismantle a cartel leader's American racing dynasty built on extortion and blood money. With extensive access to investigative evidence and in-depth interviews with key players, del Bosque turns more than three years of research and her decades of reporting on Mexico and the border into a gripping narrative about greed and corruption.
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Why the fake accents?
- By DM on 11-18-17
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Operation Family Secrets
- How a Mobster's Son and the FBI Brought Down Chicago's Murderous Crime Family
- By: Frank Calabrese Jr., Keith Zimmerman, Kent Zimmerman, and others
- Narrated by: Todd McLaren
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Calabrese family of Chicago is a close-knit, middle-class, multi-generational Italian-Irish-American clan. They operate family businesses. They work day and night striving for the American Dream. All three sons forge a bond with their controlling father, Frank Sr., and their soft-spoken favorite uncle, Nick. As a boy, the oldest son, Frank Jr., realizes that his father and uncle are also "made" members of another close-knit family: the outfit.
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Riveting Listen!
- By ahippieadventure on 02-06-13
By: Frank Calabrese Jr., and others
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The Corporation
- An Epic Story of the Cuban American Underworld
- By: T. J. English
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 19 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
By the mid 1980s, the criminal underworld in the United States had become an ethnic polyglot; one of the most powerful illicit organizations was none other than the Cuban mob. Known on both sides of the law as "the Corporation", the Cuban mob's power stemmed from a criminal culture embedded in south Florida's exile community - those who had been chased from the island by Castro's revolution and planned to overthrow the Marxist dictator and reclaim their nation.
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uncle joey approved
- By Anonymous User on 04-14-18
By: T. J. English
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The Brothers Bulger
- How They Terrorized and Corrupted Boston for a Quarter Century
- By: Howie Carr
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
This fresh account of Massachusetts' infamous Bulger brothers unveils a stunning criminal alliance, and with its dual biography format, goes deeper than the New York Times best-selling Black Mass. For the first time, journalist Howie Carr reveals the real story behind the infamous Bulgers, two brothers from South Boston who grew up to control a state.
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ZZZZZZzzzzzzzz
- By Tory on 11-18-06
By: Howie Carr
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Vegas and the Mob
- By: Al W. Moe
- Narrated by: Jason Sullivan
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Las Vegas was the Mob's greatest venture and most spectacular success, and through 40 years of frenzy, murder, deceit, scams, and skimming, the FBI listened on phone taps and did virtually nothing to stop the fun. This is the truth about the Mob's control of the casinos in Vegas like you've never heard it before, from start to finish.
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From Bugsy to Binion
- By Patrick King on 08-20-14
By: Al W. Moe
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Making Jack Falcone
- An Undercover FBI Agent Takes Down a Mafia Family
- By: Joaquin "Jack" Garcia, Michael Levin
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
At six-foot-four-inches and 375 pounds, Jack Garcia looked the part of a mobster, and he played his part so perfectly that his Mafia bosses never suspected he was an undercover agent for the FBI. "Big Jack Falcone," as he was known inside La Cosa Nostra, learned all the inside dirt about the Gambino organized crime syndicate and its illegal activities---from extortion and loan-sharking to assault and murder.
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interesting story--offensive narration
- By Mark on 03-17-12
By: Joaquin "Jack" Garcia, and others
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Red Notice
- A True Story of High Finance, Murder and One Man's Fight for Justice
- By: Bill Browder
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Red Notice is a searing expose of the wholesale whitewash by Russian authorities of Magnitsky's imprisonment and murder, slicing deep into the shadowy heart of the Kremlin to uncover its sordid truths.
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This is an absolute "YES" as your next read/listen
- By William on 02-07-15
By: Bill Browder
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Freezing Order
- A True Story of Russian Money Laundering, State-Sponsored Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath
- By: Bill Browder
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Browder’s young Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was beaten to death in a Moscow jail in 2009, Browder cast aside his business career and made it his life’s mission to pursue justice for Sergei. One of the first steps of that mission was to uncover who had killed Sergei and profited from the $230 million corruption scheme that he had exposed. As Browder and his team tracked the money that flowed out of Russia—through the Baltics and Cyprus and on to Western Europe and the Americas—they discovered that Vladimir Putin himself was one of the beneficiaries of the crime.
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Red Notice Part II —- The Empire Struck Out
- By R. Alembik on 04-16-22
By: Bill Browder
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For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the master thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than two hundred heists over nearly eight years—in museums and cathedrals all over Europe—Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend who worked as his lookout, stole more than three hundred objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion.
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Making a living reproducing famous artworks for a popular online retailer and desperate to improve her situation, Claire is lured into a Faustian bargain with Aiden Markel, a powerful gallery owner. She agrees to forge a painting - a Degas masterpiece stolen from the Gardner Museum - in exchange for a one-woman show in his renowned gallery. But when that very same long-missing Degas painting is delivered to Claire's studio, she begins to suspect that it may itself be a forgery. Her desperate search for the truth leads Claire into a labyrinth of deceit where secrets hidden since the late 19th century may be the only evidence that can now save her life.
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Fascinating, educational, and a great police story
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What separates a masterpiece from a piece of junk? Thanks to the BBC's Antiques Roadshow and its American spin-off, everyone is searching garage sales and hunting online for hidden gems, wondering whether their attics contain trash or treasures. In The Art Detective, Philip Mould, one of the world's foremost authorities on British portraiture and an irreverent and delightful expert for the Roadshow, serves up his secrets and his best stories.
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The art world is a much dirtier, nastier business than you might expect. Tony Tetro, one of the most renowned art forgers in history, will make you question every masterpiece you’ve ever seen in a museum, gallery, or private collection. Tetro’s “Rembrandts,” “Caravaggios,” “Miros,” and hundreds of other works now hang on walls around the globe.
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Incredibly interesting!
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Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny. They’re the guards who roam unobtrusively in dark blue suits, keeping a watchful eye on the two million square foot treasure house. Caught up in his glamourous fledgling career at The New Yorker, Patrick Bringley never thought that he’d be one of them.
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Gallery 771
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Isabella Stewart Gardner’s museum, with its plain exterior enfolding an astonishing four-story Italian palazzo, rose from Boston’s Fens at the turn of the twentieth century. Its treasures encompassed not only masterwork paintings but tapestries, rare books, prints, porcelains, and fine furniture.
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Master Thieves
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In a secret meeting in 1981, a master thief named Louis Royce gave career gangster Ralph Rossetti the tip of a lifetime. As a kid, Royce had visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and made a habit of sneaking in at night to find a good place to sleep. He knew the Museum's security was lax, and he gave this information to a boss of the Boston criminal underworld. It took years before the Museum was hit. But when it finally happened, it quickly became one of the most infamous art heists in history.
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Boring!
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The Translator
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Clive Franklin, a Russian language expert in the Foreign Office, is summoned unexpectedly to Moscow to act as translator for the British Prime Minister. His life is upended when he discovers that his former lover, Marina Volina, is the interpreter to the Russian President. Together they will try to stop the attack that could paralyse communications and collapse the Western economy.
By: Harriet Crawley
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The Art of the Heist
- Confessions of a Master Art Thief, Rock-and-Roller, and Prodigal Son
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Overall
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Performance
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How did the son of a decorated policeman grow up to be one of Boston's most notorious criminals? How did he survive a decades-long feud with the FBI? How did he escape one jail sentence with a fake gun carved out of soap? How did he trade the return of a famous Rembrandt for early release from another sentence? The Art of the Heist is a roller-coaster ride of a life, the memoir of America's most infamous art thief Myles Connor.
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What an idiot, the bravado in his voice,
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By: Myles J. Connor Jr., and others
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The Last Leonardo
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Story
In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci’s small oil painting the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction. In the words of its discoverer, the image of Christ as savior of the world is “the rarest thing on the planet.” Its $450 million sale price also makes it the world’s most expensive painting. For two centuries, art dealers had searched in vain for the Holy Grail of art history: a portrait of Christ as the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci. Many similar paintings of greatly varying quality had been executed by Leonardo’s assistants in the early 16th century.
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Definitely makes you think.
- By John Galt on 04-20-21
By: Ben Lewis
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All That Glitters
- A Story of Friendship, Fraud, and Fine Art
- By: Orlando Whitfield
- Narrated by: Orlando Whitfield
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Orlando Whitfield and Inigo Philbrick met in 2006 at London’s Goldsmiths University where they became best friends. By 2007 they had started I&O Fine Art. Orlando would eventually set up his own gallery and watch as Inigo quickly immersed himself in a world of private jets and multimillion-dollar deals for major clients. Inigo seemed brilliant, but underneath the extravagant façade, his complicated financial schemes were unraveling. With debt, lawsuits, and court summonses piling up, Inigo went into a tailspin of lies and subterfuge.
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Gripping
- By Anonymous User on 09-01-24
What listeners say about Priceless
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Alex Xela
- 09-07-16
Excellent story
The narrator voice was fantastic and the story gripping and compelling. I'm not an art connoisseur and still I could follow and understand.
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- John S.
- 01-15-11
Think carefully before buying
A while back, I saw this book here while browsing, looked interesting (and I liked the sample), so dropped a credit on it; my library continues to have a long hold queue for the print version, which also influenced that decision.
I liked that the author didn't spend a long time on his background, getting to his FBI career fairly quickly. The accident that killed his first(?) partner takes up a fair amount of time, but can't really be ignored as the aftermath dragged on for years; moreover, it spurred him to take an interest in art, awaiting a resolution. The stories were interesting, though they dragged in places, partly from his tone of self-congratulation ... he's far from modest! I came away feeling that Wittman had mixed motives in putting out the book, both to emphasize the importance of art crime cases, as well as to air a grudge against the Bureau's frustrating bureaucracy (Fred-in-Boston, he's looking at you!).
Would I recommend it? Yes, but ... I don't think I'd go the audio route again. Not to knock the narration at all, but there were a couple of places I just had to fast-forward through, which rarely happens, and that was even after I'd made the decision to take a break between the two 4-hr parts. Wittman's self-important personality got in the way enough to make what should have been a great story "overall okay" I'm afraid. I wish I'd been able to skim more.
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23 people found this helpful
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- Becky B.
- 09-20-21
Fascinating true crime memoir
A down to earth memoir of what it is really like to work art crimes as part of the US FBI. The cases ranged from absurd and almost funny to frustrating and somewhat dangerous. Other than about 10 strong swears at the end, pretty clean.
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- Matt S
- 01-30-20
I didnt want the story to end!
Great book filled with mystery and a look into the world of government agencies and criminal activity.
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- Dorota
- 03-20-17
For the love of art!
Any additional comments?
A wonderful look back at one's successful life of good versus greed. An amazing story recounting recovery of important pieces of human history and culture by a few FBI individuals and then small unit devoted and passionate about importance of the art. The message: it is not about putting bad guys in jail, but being able to offer current and future generations a glance into the past. A read worth listening!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Walter Scanlon
- 08-12-23
A riveting memoir of cops, robbers and art
Wittman’s story about the world of art and the underworld that deals in it will not disappoint. Not only will the reader come away with an understanding of this multi-billion dollar criminal enterprise, but also the nail-biting story how one undercover agent changed how the FBI now views and approaches the theft of art.
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- bruce kittrick
- 12-16-23
Great story. I love art and history so Bob’s books are tops.
The author has an eye for detail, not surprising given his work. He is a great observer and tells the finest story. Keep up the great work.
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- Jonnie
- 12-19-10
Good story
It was amazing to me how little these art treasures were valued by the FBI hierarchy and how few resources were allocated for their recovery.
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3 people found this helpful
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- LibertyLion
- 08-24-17
Thank you for your service and story!
A captivating collage of unique cases from an undercover FBI agent who shares his incredible life as a man who cared deeply about preserving the heritage, culture, antiques, and art from around the globe. All future generations are fortunate to have had this gentlemen and his fellow agents working so diligently on saving some of history's greatest creative accomplishments. A toast to goes to him and his supportive family for all they have done!
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- RAH
- 06-16-20
Enjoyed this book!
I really enjoyed this book. The flow of the story kept me glued to hear more. Had all elements I like, art, history and crime solving. Would love to see it made into a movie
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