Lewis Erskine, the impeccably attired TV character played by Efrem Zimbalist Jr., whose actions in the line of duty were always beyond reproach. The neighborhood in which the Wittman family lived had its own version of Lt. Wittman, Founder of the FBI Art Crime Team. In Wittman’s case, the inspiration to serve his country came from two particular role models – one the product of a screenwriter’s imagination, the other a flesh-and-blood FBI agent from Baltimore. Wittman’s stellar 20-year career as the agent who made life a misery for criminals who brokered stolen artworks “in the space between the black and the white” is chronicled in a riveting new memoir titled Priceless – How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures.Īs we learn from the pages of Priceless, which was authored by Wittman together with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Shiffman, FBI men are not born they’re made. In that semi-fictionalized onscreen portrayal of the FBI in action, G-Men became heroes in the eyes of a generation of postwar kids, including Wittman, who would grow up to become the most famous of all international art sleuths and founder of the FBI Art Crime Team. Growing up in Baltimore during the 1960s and ’70s, young Bob Wittman would wait all week to hear those heart-stopping words, his eyes locked on the no-nonsense escapades of Lt. Wittman with John Shiffman, Crown Publishing, retail: $25. Priceless – How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures, by Robert K.
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