The true story of Sandy Nairne’s search for two stolen artworks is the kind of stuff usually reserved for the crime fiction shelves. Ian Pemberton reviews his new book Art Theft and the Case of the Stolen Turners.

It sounds like a heist movie – £24 million worth of art works stolen and a chase over nearly 10 years to get them back. Yet in a new book, National Portrait Gallery director Sandy Nairne tells his true account of the search for two works by one of Kent’s most famous artists, JMW Turner.

The world-renowned painter is the inspiration behind Margate’s new Turner Contemporary art gallery and he painted many of his greatest pieces on the shores of the seaside town.

In his new book, Art Theft and the Case of the Stolen Turners, Nairne tells a real-life cat-and-mouse drama.

The tale begins in 1994 when Turner pieces Light and Colour and Shade and Darkness were taken while on loan to the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, Germany.

The theft was a “stay behind”, where the crooks entered the gallery during the day with other visitors and then hid themselves away until after closing hours. They then overpowered security and left with the paintings through the back door.

It fell to Nairne, back then in his capacity as director of programmes at the Tate, to solve the problem. Along with his boss at the Tate, Nicholas Serota, he undertook a rollercoaster ride into the unknown.

They would lead a double life which involved numerous frustrating trips to Frankfurt and negotiations with police forces, lawyers, gangsters and assorted unscrupulous chancers.

After years of chasing wild geese, three men were eventually convicted for the theft. Yet the Tate still didn’t have the paintings.

Enter the flamboyant German lawyer Edgar Liebrucks, who after some rather dubious arrangements finally secured the handover of Shade and Darkness in 2000. This was in stark contrast to the official timescale of events eventually released to the press. The initial return was kept under wraps in a press statement to avoid jeopardising the return of Light and Colour.

Two years later in 2002, the two paintings were reunited and back in the care of people who moved heaven and earth to recover them. Part two of the book discusses other notorious art thefts and the many hurdles – moral and legal – that need to be negotiated in such circumstances.

This is a riveting blow-by-blow account of a situation you could not make up, or indeed put down.

Art Theft and the Case of the Stolen Turners by Sandy Nairne is published by Reaktion and costs £20. Nairne will be supporting the book launch by visiting the Turner Contemporary on Friday, September 23. This is one of only two UK appearances. Call 01843 233000.