Two men disguised as Boston police officers trick their way into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum after midnight, tie up two night watchmen, and make off with an estimated half billion dollars worth of artwork, including paintings by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Degas. You can’t make this stuff up. And, as you well know, no one did. It happened. Now, 25 years after the robbery, three-time Pulitzer Prize winner **Stephen Kurkjian**, the principal reporter on the case for The Boston Globe for years, writes about it in his new book, _Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off the World’s Greatest Art Heist_.
Stephen Kurkjian has worked as an editor and reporter for the Globe since 1968. As a senior assistant metropolitian editor, he is assigned to the newsroom's projects staff, preparing special investigative reports. In recent years Kurkjian has reported on the Zantop murder case, the bus crash that claimed the lives of four Newton middle-school students, the Teamsters' control of New England's movie industry, and the City Hall deal to funnel millions of dollars from waterfront development into the hands of South Boston politicians, among other projects. Between 1986 and 1991, Kurkjian ran the Globe's Washington bureau, where he reported on the Justice Department, the White House, the Iran-contra scandal, and the Gulf War. Before that, Kurkjian worked as a reporter and from 1979 to 1986 was chief of the Globe Spotlight team. As a member of Spotlight, he was awarded two Pulitzer Prizes and more than 20 other regional and national reporting awards. A Boston native, Kurkjian attended the city's public schools and graduated from Boston University and Suffolk University Law School.