Finkel's ability to tell a good story is noteable from the start. he paints an idyllic life for Breitwieser at the start, surrounded by beauty (art) such that he doesn't care for "real world" issues like finances. it's nice, it's entertaining, but it's... too perfect.

Finkel seems to try to shaft "responsibility" for Breitwieser's behaviour onto his father, that by leaving he pushed Breitwieser to start stealing to make up for his losses, which feels... predictable? and combined with massively downplaying Breitwieser's treatment of Anne-Catherine, Finkel's biases towards Breitwieser is noticeable throughout. at the start he also states Anne-Catherine refused to be interviewed for the book, and Finkel seems to take that as a free pass to do a lot of speculation surrounding her actions, as well as discredit her experiences of abuse.

from the start, he takes care to point out that "she fell in love with him totally and sincerely", painting her as a willing participant in Breitwieser's heists because he awoke "a great sense of adventure" within her. Finkel wants to portray Breitwieser as some sort of victim, where Anne-Catherine egged him on because they had a shared spitefulness towards his father and "signalled [her] consent" for stealing art, and by doing so painting Anne-Catherine as unreliable when it comes to her later testimonials regarding Breitwieser's abusive behaviours. he writes about an event in which Breitwieser assaults Anne-Catherine, but because she returned to him and stayed he later tries to claim she is exaggerating her claims of abuse. instead, Finkel tries to portray Breitwieser as a victim, slighted by Anne-Catherine, his mother, his father, the justice system – all he wanted to do was collect art and now he "has nothing", hard done to by the world without fully holding Breitwieser accountable for his (solo) recidivism and subsequent trials, instead making them out to be "necessary" ways for him to get money due to his criminal record. it's a disappointing conclusion and overall message to say the least, when Finkel had the opportunity to talk about ownership of items in museums, especially given the increasing conversation around museums handing back stolen/looted items to their rightful countries.

I didn't know about Finkel's history of journalistic misconduct until reading other reviews (robalir's and ehawley's reviews go more in-depth about this) and this omission meant that I found myself questioning everything I read. while I do believe people can improve and grow from past unethical behaviour, Finkel clearly hasn't, and the obfuscation of his relationship with Breitwieser and use of "sources" until the very end gives me little confidence in regards to the reliability of this book. from the start I got the sense that it's "narrative non-fiction" (i.e. non-fiction that reads like a novel), but given its reliability (or rather, lack thereof), I'd argue it's more of a non-fiction novel. in that aspect, Finkel is a skilled writer, but in terms of accuracy and reliability, this "note" at the end of the book suddenly makes the bias towards Breitwieser so much clearer. this is a good story, but I'm inclined to take everything said here with a large grain of salt when it comes to the truthfulness and accuracy of a lot of this.