Fine Turkish Original bdg. HC. 4to. (26 x 21 cm). Edition in Turkish. 192 p., color ills. Kayip Eserler Müzesi: Sanat suçlarinin doruklari. [= Museum of the missing: The high stakes of art crimes]. Translated by Mine Haydaroglu. Preface by Julian Radcliffe. The past few years have been tough on Edvard Munch. First the Norwegian Expressionist's iconic painting The Scream was stolen in 1994. Then it was recovered, and a different version was stolen in 2004. It seems that Munch is getting more than his fair share of attention from thieves, but he's not alone. These days, no artist?s work is safe. The international police agency, Interpol, currently lists as stolen more than twenty-five thousand works of art. This figure includes sculptures, furniture, clocks, and antiquities, as well as paintings. The number of paintings alone is staggering. Rembrandts, Renoirs, Van Goghs, Picassos. You could fill a museum. In Museum of the Missing, journalist Simon Houpt investigates the fascinating story of modern art theft. What started as looting of art treasures by invading armies, including the Nazis during World War II, has exploded into a sophisticated international operation. But grand art thefts are only part of this fascinating story. Houpt takes the reader into the backrooms of Scotland Yard, the FBI, and Interpol as crack art-recovery squads mount surveillance operations and elaborate stings. He also leads readers into a tangled underworld of money laundering, drugs, illegal arms trading, and terrorism?where the stakes for both sides are very high. The stakes for lovers of art are just as high. Many of the world's stolen masterpieces will probably not be recovered in the foreseeable future. Some may never be seen by the public again. Museum of the Missing offers an extraordinary glimpse of these lost treasures.
