The Art of the Heist: Confessions of a Master Art Thief, Rock-And-Roller, and Prodigal Son

From New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, to the Smithsonian Institution in D.C., to Boston's Museum of Fine Art, to dozens of regional museums throughout the United States, no museum was off-limits to leg­endary art thief Myles Connor. He has used every technique in the book, from breaking and entering, to cat burglary, to false identities and elaborate con jobs. He once even grabbed a Rembrandt off a wall in broad daylight and simply ran like hell. His IQ is at genius level, and his charm is legendary. The fact that he was in jail at the time of the famous robbery of the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum — which remains the largest art theft in American history — has not stopped the FBI from considering him a top suspect in that still unsolved robbery.

How did the son of a decorated policeman grow up to become one of Boston's most notorious criminals? How did he survive a decades-long feud with the Boston police and the FBI? How did he manage to escape one jail sentence with a simple fake gun carved out of soap? How did he trade the return of a famous Rembrandt in exchange for early release from another sentence?

The Art of the Heist is a roller-coaster ride of a life, by a man who was drawn to misadventure at every turn. As a promising young rock star, Myles Connor started collecting Japanese swords and weapons. Soon his collection expanded through less than legitimate means, and his education in European masters and modern artists accelerated. Disguised as an art collector, he spent time in the archives of museums far and wide, and visited after hours to take advantage of what he learned by day.

Along the way, he robbed banks, warehouses, trailers, and estate homes. He engaged in rooftop shootouts with the police. He walked the streets of Boston in disguise while dozens of policemen were out searching for him. The Art of the Heist is part confession, part thrill ride, and impossible to put down.

Myles J. Connor Jr. is an arts connoisseur with a penchant for Japanese swords and Rembrandt. He is also a thief. Since the mid-'60s, Connor has pilfered works from numerous cultural institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Smithsonian Institute in Washington and the Boston Children's Museum. He's been a convict, an ex-con and a fugitive, once escaping from a Maine prison... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) by threatening guards with a fake gun he'd fashioned out of a bar of soap.

Released from federal prison in 2001, Connor has teamed up with novelist Jenny Siler to write a gripping tell-all, "The Art of the Heist." For a master of deceit, Connor is surprisingly candid. "Here's exactly how we did it," he writes, before describing, in detail, the broad-daylight theft of a Rembrandt from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1975 (in this case, a real gun was vital). The arc of Connor's story — the son of a police officer, growing up with a love of the finer things that landed him on the other side of the law — is cinematic, and his book offers a fascinating look inside the mind of an unrepentant criminal: "Stealing from a museum archive is a lot like robbing your grandmother's attic," he writes. "The pieces I took would, I reasoned, not be missed by the overburdened museum staff. I, on the other hand, loved and appreciated them."

Nora Krug is The Washington Post Book World's monthly paperback columnist.

Reviewed by Nora Krug, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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From New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art to Boston's Museum of Fine Art, no museum had been off-limits to legendary art thief Connor. "The Art of the Heist" tells the story of a roller-coaster ride of a life, by a man who had been drawn to misadventure at every turn.

Myles J. Connor grew up in Milton, Massachusetts, the son of a decorated policeman. During the 1960s and '70s he was the leader of a successful Boston rock-and-roll band, Myles and the Wild Ones. He robbed his first museum when he was twenty years old. Shortly after, he gained notoriety for his daring escape from a Maine jail, and for his involvement in a dramatic shoot-out with Boston police. Connor has planned and executed numerous bank robberies and museum heists, several of which are told here for the first time.

Coauthor Jenny Siler, the author of six novels, first met Myles in the fall of 2007. Together, Jenny and Myles have interviewed many eyewitnesses to the events described in the book. For help in reconstructing and corroborating Myles's story, Jenny has combed through numerous documents, including newspaper archives, police reports, court records, transcripts of FBI interviews, and personal correspondence.