The British Library has hired Robert Goldman, an attorney who specializes in art thefts, to represent it in hopes of tracking down the missing maps that Forbes Smiley has not confessed to taking. The Hartford Courant’s Kim Martineau has a profile of the eccentric lawyer:

With a drooping mustache and wire-rimmed glasses, Goldman bears more than a passing resemblance to his swashbuckling hero, [Teddy Roosevelt]. The former prosecutor is the latest character to ride into a map caper that the FBI has spent the last year untangling.

E. Forbes Smiley III, a disgraced map dealer from Martha’s Vineyard, pleaded guilty in June to stealing nearly 100 rare maps. But at least one institution is convinced he took more. The British Library has reached across the Atlantic to Goldman’s law firm in a northern Philadelphia suburb. Goldman will try to shake loose more information before Smiley’s sentencing next month, while the library still has leverage.

Not much about the case itself; everyone’s staying mum until Smiley is sentenced on September 21.

See previous entries: Stolen Maps Meeting Kept Private; Forbes Smiley Case: Another Missing Maps Update; Missing Map Overlap; Yale Issues Statement About Smiley Investigation; Boston Globe on Libraries’ Suspicions About Smiley; Libraries Suspect Smiley in More Map Thefts; Is Forbes Smiley Getting Off Easy?; Three Missing British Maps Still Missing.