A tragic story of theft and ruin

It’s been more than two weeks since Lawrence Van De Carr lost his livelihood. The Chicago book dealer’s van filled with around 400 rare antiquarian books went missing outside of an Oakland condo last month, and with it, so did a potential $350,000 in sales.

In a final plea for the timeless titles, Van De Carr is offering a $3,000 reward for the return of his books.

“I’m the victim here,” he said Tuesday. “I’ve lost my income. This is how I make my money. This is what I do.”

Van De Carr had just finished one of his usual trips to Bay Area book fairs when he ended his West Coast visit by staying at a friend’s Oakland home in the 200 block of Whitmore Street.

He parked his locked van on the small one-way street outside the condo on the afternoon of Feb. 15. The next morning, the van was gone. Van De Carr immediately made a call to Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America and an alert went out to local book dealers to watch out for anyone selling rare, expensive books, Van De Carr said.

The next day, Joshua Anderson, 30, of Concord, was arrested after he tried selling several of Van De Carr’s books to Moe’s Books in Berkeley, said Officer Jenn Coats, a Berkeley police spokeswoman.

Employees contacted police around 1:15 p.m. to report someone was trying to sell Van De Carr’s books, Coats said. As officers arrived, Anderson ran out the front door and was detained at Telegraph Avenue and Dwight Way.

A second suspect ran out the back door and has yet to be apprehended.

With one suspect in custody, Van De Carr, owner of Booklegger’s Used Books in Chicago, hoped the suspected thief would lead authorities to the van. Anderson told officials to search 62nd and International Boulevard in Oakland, but no trace of the vehicle or novels was found, Van De Carr said.

When Anderson was arrested, Van De Carr at least got back the four books Anderson was trying to sell, together worth around $14,000: “A Hornbook for Witches: Poems of Fantasy” by Leah Bodine Drake, one of only 563 known copies; “No Country for Old Men” by Cormac McCarthy, “Always Comes Evening” by Robert E. Howard, and “Pylon” by William Faulkner.

But it’s not enough. At 68, Van De Carr said he’d had the books to fall back on in his retirement. He doesn’t anymore.

“It’s wiped me out of being in the rare book business ... the books were basically my lifeblood,” he said.