Flawless

Starred review from December 14, 2009
Campbell, the author of Blood Diamonds
, teams with fellow blood diamond expert and lawyer Selby for a fascinating chronicle of the $108 million theft at the Antwerp Diamond Center on February 15, 2003. Documenting every detail, they begin with Leonardo Notarbartolo, who rented an office in the Diamond Center, from which, over a two-year period, he surveyed all angles of the supposedly impenetrable subterranean vault. His photos were used by his Italian partners in crime to construct a replica rehearsal vault. The theft was “devastating and embarrassing” for the diamond district and threatened the city’s major industry. In reconstructing the heist and aftermath, the authors take the reader through every step to show how the thieves were able to get past 10 layers of security, including surveillance cameras, electronic sensors, and a double-locked foot-thick steel door. Although the authors encountered “conflicting details, divergent opinions, and incongruous theories,” numerous interviews (including with Notarbartolo in prison) and key documents enabled them to assemble a “triangulation of facts from reliable sources.” Like a finely cut gem, this well-polished, multifaceted book sparkles. Maps.

January 1, 2010
Exciting, well-crafted tale of the"School of Turin," a gang of master thieves who looted the putatively theft-proof Antwerp Diamond Center.

Selby and Campbell (Blood Diamonds: Tracing The Deadly Path of the World's Most Precious Stones, 2002, etc.) provide an engrossing nonfiction thriller with a truly improbable story at its center, but they also provide a colorful look at the shadowy world of the diamond trade—how they're graded, sold, secured and stolen. In February 2003, the prim staff of the Diamond Center—a supposedly impregnable fortress at the heart of that city's ultra-secure"Diamond Square Mile"—found their vault had been looted over the weekend, with discarded gems piled on the floor. The heist was the product of two years' worth of planning by the storied School of Turin, a near-mythical fraternity of secretive jewel thieves based in an Italian city known for its clever criminals. The authors initially focus on the gang's"inside man," Leonardo Notarbartolo, who brazenly rented an office in the complex, then spent endless hours casing it, using tricks like a hidden video camera in the vault—one of the book's strengths is the attention to the minutiae of the heist. The Diamond Center's various defenses proved no match for the gang, whose specialists patiently analyze the various alarms, cameras, locks and sensors guarding the vault. The actual heist went smoothly, but the thieves miscalculated terribly afterward, throwing away incriminating trash in a forest patrolled by a ranger obsessed with littering. When Notarbartolo returned to the Diamond Center to allay suspicion, the cops were waiting for him. He served six years in prison, but almost none of the estimated $500 million in loot was recovered. Many readers will agree that"their capture and incarceration for the largest diamond heist in history seems to have been well worth the price they paid." Selby and Campbell offer an effective, well-researched collaboration, in which the classic heist story illustrates the seamy underbelly and criminal lure behind the bright fa‡ade of the diamond industry.

Sure to appeal to armchair rogues and, like Blood Diamond, cinema-ready.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

January 15, 2010
Attorney and diamond expert Selby and journalist Campbell ("Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World's Most Precious Stones") have meticulously pieced together the planning and execution of the heist of the 21st century. In February 2003, a group of Italian thieves made off with somewhere between $108 and 432 million worth in diamonds, other gems, and cash, managing to bypass the security, including video cameras, an iron and steel vault door, magnetic locks, and motion, light, and heat sensors of the heavily patrolled and watched Antwerp (Belgium) Diamond Center. Spoiler alert: the crime was solved quickly thanks to the vigilance of the caretaker of a nearby preserved forest, who discovered trash dumped by the thieves the very next morning. By the time alleged ringleader Leonardo Notarbartolo returned to the center a week later to swipe in and out of the office he had rented there to throw off suspicion, he was already the prime suspect and was quickly arrested. He and three others were caught and convictedbut most of the loot was never recovered. VERDICT Fans of true crime (especially those who appreciate less violence and no gore) and of crime caper movies will especially enjoy this fun romp.Karen Sandlin Silverman, Ctr. for Applied Research, Philadelphia

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 1, 2010
In February 2003, thieves broke into the Diamond Center in Antwerpone of the most secure diamond facilities in the worldand absconded with merchandise worth, according to some reports, in the neighborhood of $500 million. This excellent true-crime account lays out the heist in precise detail (although some elements of the crime, such as how the crooks got through a combination-locked vault door, remain shrouded in mystery). The thieves, led by notorious Italian jewel thief Leonardo Notarbartolo, were a clever bunchthis was an audacious, complex, and well-planned operationbut they also made some really dumb mistakes, like throwing away bags of trash with incriminating evidence inside them. Fans of caper books and movies will be in seventh heaven here, not only for the detail-rich descriptions of the crime but also for the narrative style. This is an exciting and suspenseful story, and it reads like the best caper fiction, with lively characters and some surprising twists. Readers familiar with Donald E. Westlakes Dortmunder novels will note many common elements here (except this heist itself actually works). Comparisons to Oceans Eleven are obvious, too, although the less-tricked-up, more procedural The Score is perhaps a more appropriate filmic companion. A must-read for true-crime fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)