THE MAN WHO STOLE THE GODS

A fascinating story about the dark money and shadowy characters driving the worldwide art industry.

And it is a big industry. STEALING THE GODS will bring readers into the storied auction houses of Sotheby's and Christie's and into cultural institutions like the Smithsonian and the British Museum, which have paid millions to house and display stolen artifacts. Readers will see how, for centuries, Western powers have plundered colonial nations of their art, and in doing so, have stripped them of their historical identities. This taps into today's reckoning throughout the art world, in which nations are demandingand often winningthe repatriation of their culture's prized items from major museums and private galleries.

Just as Campbell's Dead in the Water tells a thrilling story to explain the shipping industry, STEALING THE GODS will use Latchford's historic looting network to explain the art market and the business interests that drive it. This is an absolutely incredible, exciting, thrilling, and at times disturbing story about one of the biggest escapades that shook the art world.

Matthew Campbell is the co-author, with Kit Chellel, of Dead in the Water (Portfolio US; Atlantic Books UK; 2022), which was a finalist for the Financial Times' Business Book of the Year award and an Economist and Sunday Times Book of the Year (see the praise in the attached proposal). Campbell is an award-winning international investigative journalist for Bloomberg Businessweek, with experience reporting from more than 25 countries on subjects including crime, corruption, economics, the environment, and public health. After a decade in Europe, he relocated in 2018 to Singapore, which he uses as a base to cover stories throughout the Asia-Pacific region.