Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures

The Wall Street Journal called him a living legend. The London newspaper The Times dubbed him «the most famous art detective in the world».

In his book, Robert Wittman—the founder of the art crime department at the FBI—reveals, for the first time, details of his remarkable professional journey. This is a thriller based on real events, every bit as gripping as «The Thomas Crown Affair».

Wittman comes from a humble family of antique traders, but his twenty-year career certainly can’t be called humble. He worked undercover—usually without a weapon—and caught thieves, fraudsters, and illegal dealers in paintings in Paris and Philadelphia, Rio and Santa Fe, Miami and Madrid.

In his memoirs, Wittman tells captivating stories of searching for priceless works of art and antiquities: golden armor of an ancient Peruvian warrior-king; Rodin’s sculpture that helped spark Impressionism; a rare Civil War-era battle standard that led one of the first African American regiments into battle.

The scope of Wittman’s feats is unprecedented. He traveled around the world to save paintings by Rockwell and Rembrandt, Pissarro, Monet, and Picasso—and even to find the original «Bill of Rights».

According to the FBI, Wittman returned artworks and antiquities worth hundreds of millions of dollars. But he says that statistics don’t matter. And who can say what’s worth more: Rembrandt’s «Self-Portrait» or the American flag that’s been in battle? Both are priceless.