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The Falcon Thief: A True Tale of Adventure, Treachery, and the Hunt for the Perfect Bird
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24/99
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22/99
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89/99
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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.
Reviews
"His writing style is gripping and fast-paced, but never short on facts and accuracy ..."
"The appeal of The Falcon Thief is that it involves us in our own form of compulsion – finding out what will happen next."
"Hammer has crafted a story that will fascinate readers craving a dramatic true tale of confident criminals, denizens of shadowy underworlds and the law enforcers who strive to catch and punish them ..."
"In his latest page-turner, Hammer...compellingly chronicles the exploits of Jeffrey Lendrum...whom he portrays as a destructive combination of knowledgeable bird-watcher and destroyer ..."
"The criminals are all the more intriguing for being nonviolent, the types motivated by obsession rather than greed ..."
"Hammer's depiction of the father and son's sabotage of the African black eagle conservation project is extremely moving ..."
"The worlds of egg-collecting and wildlife crime may be relatively esoteric, but Hammer crafts a decent thriller out of his material, largely by making much of Lendrum's feats of derring-do: abseiling down Patagonian cliff faces, dangling from helicopters in Canada and the like."
"Hammer finds that Lendrum is in it more for the excitement and thrill than the astronomical prices racing falcons command."
"Hammer...delivers a vivid tale of obsession and international derring-do ..."
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