11 Books About Art Heists That Are Almost as Thrilling as Raiding the Louvre
These bestsellers and underrated novels examine everything from the underbelly of the art world to the unhinged artist.
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There’s something downright thrilling about an art heist. From the intricate planning to close calls and speeding getaway cars, this upper echelon of thievery has all the necessary ingredients of a propulsive plot. Cue the art-heist novel: Books that capture the blood-pumping drama of invading the exclusive art world, stealing iconic works and (sometimes) getting away with it.
Whether you’ve loved a good heist ever since first watching Ocean’s Eleven or got swept up in the recent Louvre scandal, books about art theft and moody thrillers set in the art world pack in tension and suspense from the first page. Between novels that laude the value of fine art to the occasionally unhinged artist's mind, when you crack open one of these books, you know you’re in for a good time.
Below, check out some of the most captivating art heist novels—beloved and new—to read now.
If you were obsessed with This Is a Robbery, the documentary about the heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, we have just the book for you. Claire Roth is an artist living in Boston, reeling from a scandal that nearly ruined her and her career. To get by, Claire paints imitations of famous artworks that are then sold online. Is it ethical? Maybe. Does it pay the bills? Absolutely.
When a well-known gallerist tours Claire’s collection and presents a strange, morally ambiguous arrangement to forge esteemed paintings in exchange for a solo show (and the chance to return to her previous high standing), Claire jumps on it. Nothing is ever easy, though. Is it? As it turns out, the work she's meant to replicate is the Degas painting from the Gardner Museum heist that was never recovered.
Imbued with the struggle of being a working artist, protecting one’s IP, and more, The Art Forger sings with Claire, a protagonist you root for, and a knotty plot that forges ahead with delicious surprises.
The best works of art can make you feel like you’re living inside them, transported to another world courtesy of the artist’s imagination. But what if you could actually step inside them? Skip stones on Matisse’s lily ponds or stretch alongside Degas’s ballerinas? Such is the conundrum Claire, an evening janitor at a museum, finds herself in. Night after night, she studies a face in a Matisse painting, only to learn that she can commune with the subjects themselves—inside the painting.
And so begins one of the captivating star-crossed love affairs of this millennium. Able to travel to various destinations rendered in various paintings (hello, ideal first date!), Claire must wrestle between her everyday life and true love. Perfect for anyone who’s had fantasies of spending the night in a museum, this book will hook you with its lovable characters and unique plot.
Ever wonder what a female Patrick Bateman might be like? Well, you might find out in the Boy Parts protagonist, Irina, an emerging photographer with a taste for subverting gender constructs in her work.
Irina has long pushed the boundaries in her photography. From challenging her professors at the Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins, people have always had something to say about the fetishized feral depravity depicted in her images. Increasingly desensitized, Irina must continuously level up (down?) the scenes she captures of young men she scouts…well, everywhere. But as it becomes increasingly difficult to separate life in and out of the darkroom, Irina spirals out of control, leaving collateral damage in her wake.
Read this if you’re jonesing for something completely unhinged and a little feral, like Yellowjackets meets American Psycho.
Leave the World Behind author Rumaan Alam's Entitlement pulls back the curtain on the other side of the art world: the wealthy who run it. Brooke is a young Black woman living in N.Y.C. who’s just landed a gig at the Jaffee Foundation, the non-profit arm of billionaire Asher Jaffee’s company. Asher, an aging businessman with no heirs, has decided to part with his fortune in hopes of installing his legacy on the mantle of rich white men (cue the eye roll).
Impressed by Brooke, Asher taps her to help identify promising organizations to receive endowments. Enthralled with Asher’s world of privilege, Brooke begins to confuse her responsibilities with (ascending) value. Tension combusts between Brooke and Asher when she champions a Brooklyn-based art program for Black children. But why?
A close examination of the wealthy who own, trade, and profit from art, as well as grant access to it, Entitlement drags Brooke (and readers) into the shark-infested waters of coldhearted business. By the end, it’s sink or swim.
Well worth a reread, The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt’s doorstopper of a novel, follows Theodore, a 13-year-old who comes into possession of the painting “The Goldfinch” by Carel Fabritius, after surviving an attack at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in N.Y.C. While picking through the wreckage, Theo encounters a dying man who asks him to return a ring to his partner. With the piece of art and ring in tow, Theo embarks on a journey to protect the painting while grappling with the tragic loss of his mother and finding Pippa, a girl he spied at the museum just before his life exploded.
Told in Theo’s hypnotic voice, readers travel from Manhattan to Las Vegas and Amsterdam as the story expands as he matures and his life becomes more and more complicated. A mix of Dickens, Little Women, and the Before Sunrise trilogy, this novel invites readers to examine each chapter as if part of a greater exhibition on art, the people who love it, and who desire it at any cost.
Is it still a heist if you steal an idea from someone's mind? Erika, the main character in this tech/art thriller, definitely would like to know. Erika has been enchanted with her friend, Mathilde, ever since they met in art school. But while Erika struggles with her art, turning her energy toward their friendship, Mathilde focuses on her art. The results are staggering: Mathilde’s star rises, and Erika finds herself left in the dust.
So, when Erika becomes privy to new technology that would enable her to live inside Mathilde’s mind, she's is willing to do just about anything to get her hands on it. Capturing the unique competition between ambitious girlfriends—and the vulnerability it reveals—the novel nails the utter confusion and bewilderment of outgrowing a friendship. Tender, though not without turns of the knife, Immaculate Conception showcases jealousy, admiration, and obsession volleyed between girlfriends.
There’s nothing quite like a Jo Piazza thriller to capture the moment. Her latest, a split-timeline that follows two strong-headed, yet searching women separated by centuries, delves into the ownership and thievery of art (and if they might be the same sometimes).
First up is Emma, an American living in Paris who has just about given up on her dream of becoming an artist. After confronting challenge after challenge, Emma takes a job cleaning houses of the uber-wealthy. Then comes along Stella Swanson, one of those ultra-elite, whose husband was an esteemed art dealer, with plenty of skeletons in their closets.
Meanwhile, van Gogh’s sister-in-law, Jo, comes into possession of his castoff paintings. She takes to heart the importance of protecting her brother-in-law’s work, even if it is only drafts and doodles.
Converging with unexpected twists during a heist of Musée d’Orsay, Emma and Jo demonstrate their defiant devotion to fine art and the people who create it. Read this if you’ve been searching for something to scratch the itch after bingeing the latest Slow Horses season or if Big Little Lies is your comfort show.
Art is political. From what gets exhibited, funded, or covered by the media, the act of creating never happens in a vacuum. Wonderfully, Li turns her heist novel into a vehicle for larger commentary on colonization and the subsequent suppression of marginalized voices. Meet Will, a Harvard art history major who’s on his way to landing a coveted job at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a feat that would make his family proud. Will loves fine art and the stories enclosed in these images and objects. But he resents them, too. Or rather, resents institutions showing stolen art for profit.
So when a wealthy businessman offers Will and several peers to steal back heritage works for an unfathomable sum, Will and his cohort of unlikely thieves must decide whether to risk it all or play it safe—and embody the colonizer’s idea of a “good immigrant.”
Stuffing the quintessential heist novel with delectable prose and valuable commentary, Li builds characters you’ll root for, even when you’re screaming at them. Ideal for those who enjoyed The Vanishing Half and Harlem Shuffle, Portrait of a Thief demonstrates genre fiction's capacity to investigate a hefty topic.
What if a counterfeiter were almost as famous as the work they forged? Such is the case in Portrait of an Unknown Lady. An anonymous forger has become infamous for their replications of renowned Buenos Aires artist Mariette Lydis's paintings. The unknown identity of the copycat is so legendary that it spurs the unnamed narrator, an esteemed Argentinian art critic, to hunt down the counterfeiter once and for all.
But the narrator has a deeper connection than solving an art-world whodunit. Having worked as an appraiser early in her career, the narrator is tasked with putting together the catalogue of her recently deceased mentor’s collection. Organizing the archive, she finds a trove of Mariette Lydis's work, leading her down a winding path that may lead to calamitous discoveries.
Read this if you’re searching for a mix of The Silent Patient meets Rachel Cusk. Heady, suspenseful and provocative, this novel doesn’t disappoint.
Lu is willing to do just about anything to make it as a photographer. She works three jobs, supports her ailing father, and lives in a dank apartment. But after inadvertently capturing the best photo of her life—a self-portrait with a boy plunging to his death in the background—she’s presented with an unusual and treacherous choice. To bury the photo and sacrifice a chance at the career she’s always dreamed of, or show it and hurt her neighbor, the boy’s mother, a friend...and maybe more.
Showcasing the relentless compromises and brutality of making it in the art world, this novel sticks with you and makes you wonder: What would you do in Lu’s position?
It can be difficult to whittle away at your backlist when there are so many new books to read. But do us a favor: Make time to dig into Surfacing by queen Margaret Atwood.
About an artist ensnared in a manhunt for her father, Surfacing plays with the line between sanity and madness, what we do for those we love, and what creates an artistic mind. The unnamed narrator has returned to Quebec to find her missing father. After she revisits her childhood home for the first time in ages, old memories resurface, and as a result, she slips into a confused delirium. She also becomes convinced her father is alive, no matter what the authorities say or find.
Surfacing places the narrator under a magnifying glass as she spins out of control. Bursting with holy-shit moments and very messy relationships, Surfacing is a novel by one of the living greats worthy of cheating on newbie bestsellers in your TBR stack.
