Master Thieves cover art

Master Thieves

The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled off the World's Greatest Art Heist

Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Master Thieves

By: Stephen Kurkjian
Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

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 heists in history: 13 works of art valued at up to $500 million - including Rembrandt's "The Storm on the Sea of Galilee". The identity of the thieves was a mystery, and the paintings were never found.

What happened in those intervening years? Which Boston crew landed the big score? And why, more than 20 years later, did the FBI issue a press conference stating that they knew who had pulled off the heist and what had happened to the artwork, but provided no identities and scant details? These mysteries are the story of Stephen Kurkjian's revealing audiobook. He will take the listener deep into the Boston mob and paint the most complete and compelling picture of this story ever told.

©2015 Stephen Kurkjian (P)2015 Tantor
Americas Art Organized Crime State & Local True Crime United States Mafia Crime Thief Boston Robbery Fiction Mystery

Listeners also enjoyed...

Killing the Dream cover art
Heist cover art
Girl in the Grave and Other True Crime Stories cover art
September Sacrifice cover art
Mickey Cohen cover art
My FBI cover art
U.S. Marshals cover art
From Midnight to Guntown cover art
Citizen Jane cover art
The Whisky King cover art
Dannemora cover art
Gotti: John Gotti American Mafia Boss cover art
The Ballad of Danny Wolfe cover art
The Brass Wall cover art
Gangsters of Harlem cover art
Hollywood's Celebrity Gangster: The Incredible Life and Times of Mickey Cohen cover art

Critic reviews

"[E]ngrossing real-life crime story." ( Kirkus)
No reviews yet