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The Falcon Thief: A True Tale of Adventure, Treachery, and the Hunt for the Perfect Bird
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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
"Ultimately, Lendrum's extensive knowledge of raptors is no more glamorous than an MDMA dealer's knowledge of the chemical precursors used in its manufacture: it's just part and parcel of a seedy job."
"The book's ultimate concern isn't with the legal case, but with understanding the roots of Lendrum's fixation on falcons, and it's here where Hammer arguably falls short."
"The problem with a book that focuses on a man who uploads videos of himself to YouTube taunting an Egyptian cobra, or who is accused of turning up the heat on an incubator full of live eggs to destroy evidence, is that it is impossible to feel empathy for Lendrum."
"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."
"His writing style is gripping and fast-paced, but never short on facts and accuracy ..."
"Hammer's story is part true crime, part nature writing."
"Hammer finds that Lendrum is in it more for the excitement and thrill than the astronomical prices racing falcons command."
"The appeal of The Falcon Thief is that it involves us in our own form of compulsion – finding out what will happen next."
"Hammer paints a vivid portrait of the thrill of the chase and the long-term relationship between criminal and police officer—both of them smart and daring, neither of them willing to give up."
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