The Gardner Heist

Shortly after midnight on March 18, 1990, two men broke into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and committed the largest art heist in history. They stole a dozen masterpieces, including one Vermeer, three Rembrandts, and five Degas. But after thousands of leads-and a dollar;5 million reward-none of the paintings have been recovered. Worth as much as dollar;500 million, the missing masterpieces have become one of the nation's most extraordinary unsolved mysteries.

Ulrich Boster has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Smithsonian magazine, Slate, and many other publications. He has served as a contributing editor at US. Mews and World Report and is the founding editor of The Open Case, a crime magazine and web community. He lives in Washington, D.C.