This was a great book about the FBI art crime team - or, one man band, as in the case of Robert Wittman. His tales of retrieving great art and artifacts from the hands of unscrupulous dealers and criminals. He is candid in his stories, separating the Hollywood version of art theft and FBI lifestyle from reality quite quickly. It is interesting to note how little the U.S. puts resources into art crime versus that of European countries, and in some way, it's an elegy to the stolen history and culture that can be recovered - and some that can't be or won't ever be. It's made me want to read up more on the Gardener heist and other major art crimes. Overall, a fascinating read about crime and what the real issue is with art crime - the theft of something priceless in our human culture.

Nearly skipped this one because of negative reviews, but I can happily say it's wonderfully written, incredibly engaging and so, so interesting. Very happy I picked it up!

Very enjoyable read about the career of an art crime FBI agent. The chapters about the Gardner heist recovery were so frustrating because it seems like he was making real headway!

I’d recommend it if you enjoy art or crime capers. 3.5 stars.

Really interesting book looking into the world of law enforcement and art recovery

Loved this book. I love art and am always interested in money laundering. Plus...true story.

Very few people in the FBI have anything to do with stolen art –it’s just not a big enough or necessarily high-profile enough area of expertise. But Bob Wittman solved art crimes at the FBI for years and Priceless is a memoir of his time trying to recover stolen art. By working undercover, he creates relationships with thugs and criminals, eventually setting up situations where he gets the art and the bad guys get in trouble. In theory.

I really enjoyed this book. I enjoyed the art history, the theft stories, the way the author played the set-up situations. I grew to have a real respect for his ability to think on his feet in some pretty frightening circumstances. He’s honest about his mistakes and while part of it did feel like he was sort of “tattling,” for lack of a better word, on people in the Bureau who made his job really frustrating, I still liked to read about the internal workings of the organization from his point of view. I came to appreciate how logically intense uncover operations can be. I didn’t need him to tell me, every time there was a press conference, that he kept in the back out of the view of the cameras, but beyond his repetitive use of the word “wiseguys” there wasn’t anything else that annoyed me.

I just found myself always interested in reading it. He tells a very unique story. I actually finished wishing there was more to read.

Read Harder Challenge 2018: True Crime

Cool read. Well paced series of cases, interspersed with background into the art pieces involved, the agents working them, and some modern history and procedures of the FBI, made this an easy and interesting read; even 13 years after being released. The style is a little repetitive, as is some of the phrasing; but the nature of the stories makes that forgivable. Enjoyable book.

This book would have been better if it hadn't been so choppy and so obviously written with the intention of being sold for movie rights. The stories had such potential to be great, but the way they were written wasn't.