Flawless

Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History
By Scott Andrew Selby & Greg Campbell
Union Square Press, 2010. 319 pgs. Nonfiction.

Is there such a thing as a perfect crime? Probably not, but a group of jewel thieves from Turin came pretty close when they robbed the vault of a building in Antwerp’s Diamond District. They got away with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of diamonds, cash, and jewelry without anyone being aware of their visit to the vault until a security guard opened the building for business the following Monday morning. Some of those involved were apprehended and sentenced to jail time but there are still aspects of the job that baffle investigating officials.

As a fan of heist movies and novels, I didn’t think this true narration was exactly gripping. It was fascinating though. The patience the thieves had over the two years of planning for the theft and then their nerve in actually pulling it off was truly amazing. On the other side of the crime, the authors also describe the actions of victims and law enforcement officers as they face the crime’s aftermath. This is an entertaining true crime story, without the violence that genre often contains.

CZ