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The writer is evidently very knowledgeable. It's a great indepth lesson but with too many unexplained and uninterpreted French quotes/references and terms that left huge gaps in my understanding. The aristocratic French accent pronounciations heightened the frustration. It was like screaming English to make a foreigner understand. Further, brief but unexplained references to historical events left me continuously stopping to google for information as to what the event was and why the writer had proclaimed it as having impact on the story. Probably a better read for a French speaking historian than just an interested novice.

In the last paragraph of the book, the author, a self professed forger and con-man, states that pressure from the FBI has persuaded him to give up forgery and that he is looking forward to his next 'project'. I think he found it in writing the book and that is was not a far leap from his previous 'profession'. Multiple accounts of cranking out huge numbers of forgeries from different artist with different styles in relatively short periods of time (weeks) and doing it with such quality so as to fool multiple experts, were simply hard to fathom in the realm of reality. Add to these his accounts of multiple relationships with elite dealers and rich collectors who befriended him from the first encounter and you have a fairly well written (and well performed) story that is extremely interesting but leaves you wondering if the classification of non-fiction was a mistake. But the aspect of the book that left me scratching my head the most was the author's pride in the quality of the painting while referring to them as 'pictures'. I don't know a lot of artist and I am not an art collector, but aren't pictures- photos? Had I bought one of his forgeries I would have at least had something to cover the wall. With the purchase of the book, I just feel duped. The 2 stars for the story helps me feel a little better.