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The Falcon Thief: A True Tale of Adventure, Treachery, and the Hunt for the Perfect Bird
by
50/99
Critics
48/99
Readers
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Scholars
17/99
Rating
84/99
Volume
30/99
Rating
67/99
Volume
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About This Book
A true-crime adventure about a rogue who trades in rare birds and their eggs—and the wildlife detective determined to stop him.On May 3, 2010, an Irish national named Jeffrey Lendrum was apprehended at Britain's Birmingham International Airport with a suspicious parcel strapped to his stomach. Inside were fourteen rare peregrine falcon eggs snatched from a remote cliffside in Wales. So begins a tale almost too bizarre to believe, following the parallel lives of a globe-trotting smuggler who spent two decades capturing endangered raptors worth millions of dollars as race champions—and Detective Andy McWilliam of the United Kingdom's National Wildlife Crime Unit, who's hell bent on protecting the world's birds of prey. The Falcon Thief whisks readers from the volcanoes of Patagonia to Zimbabwe's Matobo National Park, and from the frigid tundra near the Arctic Circle to luxurious aviaries in the deserts of Dubai, all in pursuit of a man who is reckless, arrogant, and gripped by a destructive compulsion to make the most beautiful creatures in nature his own.
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Reviews
"the author beautifully renders this tale 'of human obsession and nature's fragility, of man's perpetual insistence on imposing his will upon the wildness of our world, and of the tiny handful of investigators, most unrecognized, working to safeguard the environment's bounty and wonder.' A sleek, winning nonfiction thriller."
"Hammer's depiction of the father and son's sabotage of the African black eagle conservation project is extremely moving ..."
"Hammer finds that Lendrum is in it more for the excitement and thrill than the astronomical prices racing falcons command."
"Hammer's exploration of the factors that culminated in egg trafficking is thorough and fascinating, offering context and entertainment alike ..."
"The appeal of The Falcon Thief is that it involves us in our own form of compulsion – finding out what will happen next."
"Nonetheless, this swashbuckling account should hold its audience rapt until the very end."
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