Vivian Maier took many thousands of photographs during her life, the majority of which she never developed. Her photos and negatives were placed in storage lockers and when she stopped paying the locker fees (at the end of her life), the contents were auctioned and subsequently disbursed to a number of people. Some of those purchasers recognized that many of the photos were museum quality, and some of the purchasers developed a lot of her negatives as a result. Then, her work began to be sold & this led to a documentary film called Finding Vivian Maier, which offered some biographical information about Maier and the surprising and amazing trove of photographs unexpectedly found in her storage lockers.All of this raised questions for many observers, questions about the artist's intent (should 3rd parties have developed her negatives), about artists' ownership & copyright interest in their work (did 3rd parties have the right to profit from Maier's work?) and about Maier's life story.Author Pamela Bannos took up the task of thoroughly researching Maier's life and this book resulted. Bannos first assembled as many of Maier's photos as she could, and spent years putting them into chronological order [a mind-boggling undertaking]. Once that was done, Bannos was able, using the photos and other clues Maier left behind, to determine a time line of Maier's life, and tell us about her origins, her relatives, her employers and where she lived and travelled when. The result is a fascinating narrative story of Maier's life, which adds much detail to earlier work, and corrects erroneous assumptions made by others.In addition, because Bannos is a scholar of photography, her book teaches the reader a lot about this art form, its history, and its most prominent practitioners. And, Bannos discusses the ethical questions posed above, and relates what has transpired with regard to protecting Maier's copyright interests in her photography [turns out she/her estate does have ownership rights in this art that were not extinguished by the storage locker sale].I must admit that I've been fascinated by the Maier story since seeing the documentary; I grew up in suburban Chicago in the 50's and 60's, so was out and about when Maier was traipsing all over the city taking pictures, often with the children she cared for in tow. I wonder if our paths ever crossed. I am a lawyer, so the copyright questions puzzled me from the beginning.But, even if I wasn't a child of the windy city, and even if I wasn't a lawyer, I think I'd find this story riveting. For all of her research, Bannos has written a clear text that I could not put down. I haven't been able to stop talking about this tale since I finished the book and have encouraged everyone I know to pick up a copy.