The Rescue Artist audiobook

Loved this book; the writing was engaging, the stories were great, etc. etc. Content gets 5 stars.However, the lack of any organization to the story did frustrate me a bit. I am okay with (even fond of) stories that jump all over the place when it serves some aesthetic, quirky, or endearing purpose. This did not. The overarching story is about the theft and recovery of The Scream. Dolnick also includes other anecdotes and adventures of the detective Charley Hill. As a side note, this does read more like a compressed biography of Charley Hill than of the overall story of the Scream theft. This is all well and good and I thoroughly enjoyed all the narrative, however it jumps around like a spastic bunny rabbit. Here's a chapter about the Scream. Here's 2 chapters about other thefts. Oh and next we have a chapter that starts out about the Scream, but ends up about a Rembrandt theft. Then we pick up the Scream story again, just when I have forgotten all the names and have to figure out who is a thief and who is undercover.Bottom line; loved it, will probably reread eventually, but just give me order, dammit!

What an incredible story! This is as thrilling as some of your better fiction reads, yet is all true. I would love to have a beer with Charley Hill. Highly recommended for anyone interested in learning more about how real art detectives work.

After looking through the reviews of The Rescue Artist on Goodreads, there seemed to be mixed feelings about this book. The majority were positive, as the book was an average of 3.77 out of 5 stars. This number proves this book is a good read since the average cumulated from over 2,600 reviews. Since the book brings different elements together, like the Winter Olympics, famous paintings, and crime mysteries, I agree with Kendra, who gave the book 5/5 stars. Other reviews mentioned how involved they felt in the reading and seemed to get a good idea of who Charley Hill is. On the other hand, some readers didn’t vibe with this book. After going over some of the 1/5 star reviews, a similarity seemed to be the unnecessary depth the author took on the art pieces themselves. One went to the extremity of calling this one of the most boring books ever as the author went into too much detail on the paintings. According to one reviewer, Caroline, it was a great story but had too much language. I believe if art history is not your cup of tea, then this book is not for you. It is unfair to critique this book if the topic itself isn’t something that interests you. Some reviewers followed my idea as they simply put the book down since it wasn’t getting the juices flowing. Overall, the people had mainly pleasant remarks about The Rescue Artist; however, there will always be the haters. The type of reader who would be most interested in this book would be either a history buff, artistic person, or mystery lover—these three categories sum of the book’s theme. I’ll start by combining history with art since this book features many world-famous pieces of art. Anyone intrigued by old paintings will love this book as, as mentioned earlier, the book goes into fine detail about each painting’s past. It adds just enough art history to be both entertaining and educational. If art isn’t your go-to reading topic, don’t leave just yet. The book still has a mysterious plot as it goes through the recovery process of Edvard Munich’s The Scream. It balances between Hill’s (the detective) life in this field of work and other art theft stories. A weakness of the book is it takes some time to get into. If you are waiting for the plot to develop, it doesn’t occur right away. Rather, the first half is heavy towards the art’s history. Going along with this is the detail the author goes into on the artworks. This can be a pro or con depending on the reader’s interests. I think the book has many strengths that I covered previously. In conclusion, I believe the book is a hit or miss depending on the reader, but worth a shot if you are looking for a read.

This book was like...Ocean's 11 meets Monuments Men, meets Billionaire's Vinegar. Full of swashbuckling thieves, a now-nostalgic 1990's era, millions of dollars of, incidentally, priceless art, and a reverse Artful Dodger who acts as undercover agent to ingratiate himself in the seedy underbelly of big money theft in order to hang a missing Bruegel back on its rightful wall. The story of the recovery of The Scream is woven in and out of other various tales of big time art theft, dating back a century and up to relatively present day. Dolnick also gives us a pseudo-psychological study of art's hero, Charley Hill, the guy who risks his life for an old canvas and hardly bats an eye. The first half of the book starts out as a page-turner as we are hot on the trail of Munch's masterpiece, but this plotline loses a bit of steam towards the end. That being said, this was an easy read on a fascinating subject, driven by a story that truly compels, even if it runs out of gas by the last page.

** spoiler alert ** I rated this book a 4 star. I thought this book had its ups and downs, but a lot more positive than negative. The book had a lot to share with the reader. I agreed with the majority of people that rated the book that the information in this book can get a little overwhelming at times. I felt as if the primary focus of this book wasn’t really the main story which was the hunt to find the Scream. It felt as if it was really just a bunch of factual information on previous art thievery from before this whether it had been solved by the main character, Charles Hill, or not. The main story I also felt didn’t really start getting real good until the last fourth of the book. Moving on to character development. The main characters in the book apart of the Bureau I felt developed very well when there story was being talked about. It stayed persistent from beginning to end of seeing them grow. The most developed one by far was definitely Charles. He was the lead role and his skills increased as the case got more and more dangerous to deal with like setting up this prop trap and managing to make a deal with the thieves in the parking lot in the middle of the night and getting away with it. Finally I learned a lot with the information about the arts being stolen even though it was a lot to handle. It is certainly mind blowing how much art is actually stolen through out history and how easy it was back then to do so. Some of the art stolen was just taken off a wall and they left with it as easy as it sounds. Today art is so much harder to steal than what it was before. In conclusion the book overall was great. Very factual and cool to see what someone’s journey was like in this career field. It shows the dangerous work people have to go through in this space. If I had to change anything about the book, it would be to focus a lot more on the main story with little bits of other facts every once in a while. I thought I was going to be bored out of mind with this book, but in the end, I enjoyed very much!

The Rescue Artist by Edward Dolnick is a non-fiction art crime book following the 1994 break-in and thievery of the masterpiece The Scream (created in 1893) by Edvard Munch. On the case is Charley Hill, an art detective and master of chameleon-like behavior useful for going undercover in order to infiltrate the underground illegal stolen art market and recover masterpieces. This was an excellent book. Dolnick not only covers the case of The Scream, but also several other thieveries of other great paintings throughout the years. It was a very fascinating read. Charley Hill was also very interesting to learn about; he was very intelligent and daring, and I can't believe the scrapes he was able to get himself out of. I recommend this book to anyone interested in true art crime. 

This was a fund read. Apparently, stealing art isn't as hard as I thought it would be. I'm considering a career change now......Either way, it's a good, quick read and very interesting. It is part-history, part-bio. It looks at the history of art thieves and the world that art thieves work in and it is also a deep-dive into the life of the world's top detective that finds stolen art pieces. I liked this book a lot. I would recommend it.

Although the author often went off on tangents, they were such fascinating tangents that I began to look forward to them. This non-fiction reads like a well-crafted fiction.

I read this one for my True Crime book and it definitely wasn't a book I would normally choose for myself. I'm super into art, but it was SUPER interesting how "artnapping" is a thing.

I enjoyed this story! The author kinda weaves in and out of the actual story to talk about art history, which doesn't exactly interest me. But I enjoyed it overall!

I love true stories that take you behind the scenes into passions outside of your own sphere. This is one of them--a suspenseful read about the audacious theft of one of the world's most famous paintings, Edvard Munch's "The Scream", from the National Gellery in Oslo. This book is about the art world's underground, and about the world's greatest art detective who tracks down the thieves. "The thief turned to "The Scream"--it hung only a yard from the window--and snipped the wire that held it to the wall. "The Scream", at roughly two feet by three feet, was big and bulky. With an ornate frame and sheets of protective glass both front and back, it was heavy, too--a difficult load to carry out a window and down a slippery metal ladder. The thief leaned out the window as far as he could and placed the painting on the ladder. 'Catch!' he whispered, and then, like a parent sending his toddler down a steep hill on a sled, he let go. His companion on the ground, straining upward, caught the sliding painting. The two men ran to their car, tucked their precious cargo into the back seat, and roared off. Elapsed time inside the museum: fifty seconds. In less than a minute the thieves had gained possession of a painting valued at $72 million. It had been absurdly easy. 'Organized crime, Norwegian style,' a Scotland Yard detective would later marvel. 'Two men and a ladder!'"....from "The Rescue Artist" by Edward Dolnick

It took me a while to realize that Edward Dolnick, author of The Clockwork Universe, also wrote one of my very favorite books; The Rescue Artist. A non-fiction work that reads like a novel, The Rescue Artist describes the efforts of art detective Charley Hill to recover Edvard Munch's The Scream when it's stolen from Oslo. (During the Winter Olympics, for added drama). Art theft and forgery fascinates me, but I think someone who doesn't have that particular fixation would still enjoy this as a good story. Colorful characters, poignant moments, and a good look at what an "art detective" really is make for an easy but thoughtful read. There's also a little section in the back called "P.S." that features a Q & A with the author about what the real life Hill thought about Dolnick's characterization of him. (He thought that the author heightened the risk of his job, and underplayed his love of art, interestingly. And his mother thought there was too much swearing in the book. :-)

I'll admit it. I am officially obsessed with learning about art crime, which as Dolnick describes in "The Rescue Artist," is odd in the very way it combines the "grime and the sublime"–the beauty and elevated genius of great art, and the crooked back dealings of thieves and criminals. This book does a great job of retelling the multiple exploits and fabricated personas of Art Squad legend Charley Hill. While the book is supposedly centered around Munch's "The Scream," the book jumps around quite a bit, stopping to explore related subjects along the way, and may be irritating for people trying to follow the main storyline. Still, "The Rescue Artist" gives quite an interesting look at the motives and economics of art thieves.