In “A Note on the Report­ing” from *The Art Thief*, the author recounts their jour­ney to learn about Stéphane Bre­itwieser, a noto­ri­ous art thief. The process took over a decade, start­ing with a let­ter in 2012 where the author request­ed an inter­view with Bre­itwieser. Back then, Bre­itwieser had not engaged with the press for years and had not spo­ken to any Amer­i­can jour­nal­ist. A long wait ensued, cul­mi­nat­ing in a brief response from him, ini­ti­at­ing a cor­re­spon­dence that grad­u­al­ly became more per­son­al.

By May 2017, after an extend­ed peri­od of exchanges, Bre­itwieser agreed to meet for lunch, albeit with­out record­ing devices. The author trav­eled from Mar­seille to Stras­bourg, dri­ving to the quaint town of Sav­erne, where they enjoyed a meal at Tav­erne Katz. Although the ini­tial inter­ac­tion was cau­tious due to near­by din­ers, the atmos­phere warmed up. Over tra­di­tion­al Alsa­t­ian stew and Coca-Cola, Bre­itwieser relaxed and agreed to for­mal inter­views, pre­fer­ring to dis­cuss sen­si­tive top­ics in pri­va­cy, specif­i­cal­ly in hotel rooms.

Dur­ing their time togeth­er, the author observed Breitwieser’s keen eye for art, evi­dent when he instant­ly rec­og­nized a print by Jean Tingue­ly in the hotel room. Their inter­views spanned exten­sive con­ver­sa­tion, and the author not­ed Breitwieser’s deft­ness in theft when he demon­strat­ed how eas­i­ly he could take the author’s lap­top while they spoke.

Through­out their interactions—amounting to about forty hours over sev­er­al meetings—deeper insights into Breitwieser’s past mate­ri­al­ized, includ­ing accom­pa­ny­ing him to for­mer crime scenes and even attend­ing his tri­al for sell­ing stolen art in 2023. The author high­lights their expe­ri­ences, not­ing Bre­itwieser’s extra­or­di­nary abil­i­ties and a pro­found under­stand­ing of art theft com­plex­i­ties.

The nar­ra­tive pro­vides a glimpse behind the scenes of art crime, enriched by inter­views with var­i­ous peo­ple con­nect­ed to Bre­itwieser, includ­ing fam­i­ly mem­bers, legal rep­re­sen­ta­tives, and art experts. It also high­lights a dis­tinc­tion between thieves moti­vat­ed by prof­it ver­sus those, like Bre­itwieser, whose actions stem from a pas­sion­ate aes­thet­ic desire, link­ing them to a unique cat­e­go­ry of col­lec­tors, bib­lio­ma­ni­acs, who are dri­ven by a sim­i­lar obses­sion with art and books.

Wait­ing ai