Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off the World's Greatest Art Heist

In a secret meeting in 1981, a master thief named Louis Royce gave career gangster Ralph Rossetti the tip of a lifetime. As a kid, Royce had visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and made a habit of sneaking in at night to find a good place to sleep. He knew the Museum's security was lax, and he gave this information to a boss of the Boston criminal underworld.

It took years before the Museum was hit. But when it finally happened, it quickly became one of the most infamous art hei…