On the day that the Lillehammer Winter Olympics opened in Norway in 1994, a man scaled a ladder to the second floor of the National Gallery in Oslo. Smashing a window, he climbed in, grabbed Edvard Munch's most famous painting, The Scream, and tossed it to an accomplice waiting below.

In seconds the duo was gone, along with Munch's painting. In its place, they left a postcard with a note that said "Thanks for the poor security."

That act provides the seed for Edward Dolnick's new book, The Rescue Artist. With detailed brush strokes, Dolnick paints the story of the theft and its aftermath.

It could easily have been three books: one about the theft, another about the art underworld and the third - the real heart of this work - an intriguing portrait of a Scotland Yard art detective who was determined to retrieve the $72 million painting that is "as instantly recognizable as the Mona Lisa or van Gogh's Starry Night."

Deciding the case was "too good to miss," Charley Hill convinced his superiors in London that he should go after the thieves, even though the case was out of his jurisdiction. He and other members of Scotland Yard's "Art Squad" devised a plan in which he would pretend to be a representative of California's Getty Museum, which supposedly was willing to pay a ransom for The Scream.

Ultimately, the plan worked and Hill got his man (or in this case "men"). Of course, it helped that Hill was raised in the United States so he could pass himself off as a wheeler-dealer American. He also is a lover of art, who spends his free time roaming museums. As Dolnick writes: "In the small world for art crooks and art cops, Hill stands nearly alone."

His interest in The Scream was equally unique. It isn't typical for law enforcement to go after such high-profile artworks, says Dolnick.

"On both sides of the law, the prudent strategy is to focus on art below the highest rank. From a thief's point of view, the best paintings to steal are ones good enough to command high prices but not so stellar that they shout trouble; from an investigator's vantage point, where the focus is on closing cases, stolen paintings are worth chasing only if the odds of success are high . . . Quantity trumps quality."

As one art detective explained, "We fish with nets. For us, it's an industrial process. Charley Hill is like a man fishing with a rod. He's looking for the biggest fish."

The little things were crucial in this case. Hill had to familiarize himself with all the "questions that art historians mull over." It wouldn't look good if the "Getty man" seemed ill-informed, the author writes.

Most of all, Hill had to know all the "nuts and bolts" about the condition of The Scream so he would be able to take one look at the painting and know if it was the "real thing." That meant memorizing such things as the pattern of wax, which spattered on a corner of the canvas when Munch blew out a candle while working.

Just as Hill revels in the details, so too does Dolnick. The former science writer for the Boston Globe is a master at capturing Hill in print because of his panache for the particulars.

"(Hill's) boyishness is unmistakable," Dolnick writes. "Thunder is good, lightning is better, a jaunt to town is much improved if some reason can be found to run after a moving bus and jump aboard the platform . . .

"Even a make-believe adventure like a dash into the snow is better than no adventure at all, but Hill is no Walter Mitty. His work routinely involves dealing with 'vindictive, cunning, violent thieves,' and the danger is not a cost but a bonus. 'I think the real reason Charley volunteered for Vietnam,' remarks one friend, 'is that he finally figured out that nobody gets killed playing football.'

"If Prince Valiant and Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe shared custody of a single body, the amalgam might resemble Charley Hill."

Dolnick points out that nine out of 10 stolen paintings disappear forever. Interpol estimates that the amount of money changing hands in the art underworld comes to between $4 billion and $6 billion a year. "A museum of stolen masterpieces would rival any of the world's treasure houses of art. The Museum of the Missing would fill endless galleries." The collection, Dolnick writes, would include 551 Picassos, 43 van Goghs, 174 Rembrandts and 209 Renoirs.

Part of the reason that art theft is such a thriving industry is because the pickings are easy. Museums exist to share their holdings with "as many people as possible."

"In comparison with even middling banks in midsized cities," Dolnick notes, "the world's best museums are as open as street fairs." It also doesn't help that museums face chronic budget shortfalls. Security systems are lacking, as are guards.

"In the United States especially, museum guards are poorly paid and poorly trained," Dolnick writes. "One large security company looks at how much McDonald's pays its employees in a given region and then offers its museum guards fifty cents an hour less than that. 'The people protecting our art,' says security specialist Steven Keller, 'are the ones who couldn't get jobs flipping burgers.' "

Laws concerning art thefts vary with each country, but overall Dolnick points out that the penalties for getting caught are low and the stories make plain "that the most hopeless sap can play."

If The Rescue Artist has any faults it's that Dolnick assumes that we're all comfortable converting pounds into dollars. He switches between the two monetary amounts freely, which will leave most American readers fumbling for their currency converters.

Also, each of the three stories here is good enough to stand alone. Dolnick's constant switching between tales can be distracting. But in the end, he still manages to paint a masterful portrait of The Rescue Artist.

Karen Algeo Krizman is a freelance writer living in Littleton.