E. Forbes Smiley, a respectable antiquarian map dealer, spent years doubling as a map thief — until he was finally arrested one day while slipping maps out of books in the Yale University Library. To write a full-length work about Smiley, investigative journalist **Michael Blanding** gained access to the man himself — no mean feat. No wonder The Minneapolis Star-Tribune calls Blanding’s much heralded work, _The Map Thief: The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps_, nothing less than “a suspenseful tale of the theft of cultural heritage by a man who presented himself as one of the chief interpreters and safeguards of that heritage.” The Map Thief was named a New England Indie Bestseller by the New England Independent Booksellers Association.