Robert K. Wittman, a retired F.B.I. special agent, has a book coming out that asserts his efforts to recover masterpieces stolen from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum were undone by infighting at the bureau.

Wittman says he had a lead in the biggest art heist in U.S. history, in which works by Vermeer and Rembrandt have been missing for twenty years now. A French middlemen with ties to a criminal gang in Corsica approached him about the paintings, but one of his superiors sabotaged the negotiations, alleges Wittman.

“Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures’’ (Crown Publishing) is being reviewed by the FBI for sensitive content. It is due to be released June 1, 2010.