THE FINE ART OF ROBBERY; THE FINE ART OF SWINDLING

Successors to this complete collector's Fine Art of Murder and Fine Art of Spying, art may be an exorbitant term since these are low-priced, medium grade collections. Robbery includes among its best known contributors Edward Radin with some 1944 safe burglars, Herbert Asbury with his late 19th century corpse-kidnapping when some old bones fetched one hundred thousand dollars in new money; Edwin Valentine Mitchell with a Northampton, Mass. bank robbery; Rene Casselari's 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa, nothing to smile about; and some assorted older and newer cases. Swindling, certainly a finer art, includes A.F. Liebling's account of the last American to salt a diamond mine; Meyer Berger's theatrical chiseler; Herbert Asbury again; and St. Clair McKelway's Mister Eight Eighty, the middle aged widower who pushed a cart and counterfeit money. On the whole, the collections will serve as trustworthy thieves of time.