Call it Mission: Impeccable: The Guardian reports that a crew of bibliophilic thieves have burgled $2.5 million in rare books from a London warehouse, cutting a hole in a skylight before rappelling down to avoid security sensors. Besides giving us a rare opportunity to use the verb “abseil” in a Newswire context, the theft also raised questions about who the heisters were stealing the books for. According to one source, there’s no open market for 15th and 16th century works from Isaac Newton, Galileo, or Leonardo DiVinci, so the theft was presumably executed on behalf of some unknown collector.
It’s worth nothing that we here at The A.V. Club do not condone criminal activities, even ones that are extremely cool, and sound like they would make truly excellent films. In fact, we sincerely hope these thieves are brought to justice, and not just because that’s probably the only way we’ll ever get to high five them for making the world of antiquarian book dealing seem momentarily sexy and cool.