Pulitzer Prize Winning Author to Speak at Westwood Public Library

Author Stephan Kurkjian will visit the Westwood Public Library on May 12 to discuss his recently released book Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off the World’s Greatest Art Heist. Called “engrossing” by Kirkus Reviews and a “great mystery story well told” by the Boston Globe, Kurkjian’s book explores the story behind the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Heist.

It was twenty-five years ago that two men impersonating police officers entered the Gardner Museum and made off with 13 works of art valued at up to $50 million. It is the most expensive museum robbery in U.S. History and the second longest unsolved case on the FBI’s Top Ten Art Crimes List.

In his library presentation, Kurkjian will discuss fresh evidence as presented in his book and reveal his own chief suspect in the crime called Boston’s “last best secret.”

The event, which begins at 7 p.m. at the Westwood Public Library’s Main Branch, is hosted by the Friends of the Westwood Library and constitutes the group’s Annual Meeting. It is free and open to the public.

Stephen Kurkjian is one of the most acclaimed investigative journalists in the country. A forty-year veteran of the Boston Globe, he is the paper’s former Washington bureau chief and a founding member of its investigative Spotlight Team. Kurkjian has won more than twenty-five national and regional awards, including the Pulitzer Prize on three occasions. He is a graduate of Suffolk Law School and lives in Boston.