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2020

Format:	Ebook, Electronic Resources, Book
Author:	Hammer, Joshua
Title:	The Falcon Thief [electronic resource] / Joshua Hammer
Publisher, Date:	[S.I.] : Simon & Schuster, 2020.
Summary:	A rollicking 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. It's a story that's part true-crime narrative, part epic adventure—and wholly unputdownable until the very last page.
Subjects:	Nature Travel True Crime Nonfiction
Other Author:	Overdrive Inc.
Notes:	Adobe EPUB eBook ebook-epub-adobe 3548208 Kindle Book ebook-kindle OverDrive Read ebook-overdrive
ISBN:	9781501191893
Medium:	[electronic resource]

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Documents the true story of Irish national Jeffrey Lendrum and his globetrotting adventures as a smuggler of rare birds, detailing the efforts of British wildlife detective Andy McWilliam to protect the world’s endangered birds of prey. 75,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)

"A rollicking true-crime adventure about a rogue who trades in rare birds and their eggs-and the wildlife detective determined to stop him"-- - (Baker & Taylor)

A rollicking 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. It’s a story that’s part true-crime narrative, part epic adventure—and wholly unputdownable until the very last page. - (Simon and Schuster)

Author Biography

Joshua Hammer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu. He has written for The New York Times Magazine, GQ, Smithsonian, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, National Geographic, and Outside. He lives in Berlin. - (Simon and Schuster)

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Publication date:	2020

About the author:

Joshua Hammer is the New York Times bestselling author of six books, including The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu and The Mesopotamian Riddle. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, GQ, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, National Geographic, Smithsonian, and Outside. He lives in Berlin.

Description:

A rollicking 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. It's a story that's part true-crime narrative, part epic adventure—and wholly unputdownable until the very last page.

Reviews:

Starred review from December 1, 2019
The story of an unrepentant birds'-egg thief who found a lucrative market for rare wild falcons on the Arabian Peninsula. In his latest page-turner, Hammer (The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race To Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts, 2016, etc.) explores two reckless and ultimately disastrous obsessions of people of a certain class and sense of entitlement: egg collecting, which gained currency during the Victorian era, and falconry, pushed to new competitive heights by Arabian princes. The author compellingly chronicles the exploits of Jeffrey Lendrum--who was arrested several times during the last two decades attempting to transport rare, endangered peregrine falcon eggs and others with intent to sell to rich Arabian clients--whom he portrays as a destructive combination of knowledgeable bird-watcher and destroyer of "the fragile, symbiotic relationship between man and the wild." Early on during his youth in Rhodesia, Lendrum's father passed along his passion of observing wildlife. As a young boy, he was enlisted to raid the nests of wild birds so that the eggshells, emptied of their yokes and dried, could be added to his father's collection. Despite the risk and illegality of the enterprise, Lendrum learned to hike and scale great heights--in Wales, Canada, and even Patagonia--to attain peregrine eggs, which many members of the royalty in Dubai covet for their lucrative racing games. In this well-written, engaging detective story that underscores the continuing need for conservation of rare bird species, Hammer delineates the trials of Andy McWilliam, the retired policeman who grew admirably to serve in his capacity as officer for the National Wildlife Crime Unit, which helped prosecute Lendrum and others. Throughout, 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.

December 23, 2019
Hammer (The Badass-Librarians of Timbuktu), a contributing writer to Smithsonian magazine, delivers a vivid tale of obsession and international derring-do. The book opens in 2010 at the U.K.’s Birmingham International Airport, where Jeffrey Lendrum was discovered with 14 bird eggs hidden in socks tied around his abdomen. Airport security alerted the National Wildlife Crime Unit, whose dedicated senior investigator, Andy McWilliam, suspected Lendrum of involvement with the black market for birds of prey, one driven by demand on the Arabian Peninsula. There Hammer pauses the modern-day narrative and takes readers back in time for a digressive, bird-centric journey, from falconry’s millennia-old roots in the Middle East, to Lendrum’s 2001 bird egg hunt across the frozen tundra of northern Quebec, a key moment in his long smuggling career. Hammer also checks in on the ill-gotten collections of several other underground egg collectors, before weaving all the narrative strands back to Birmingham. Lendrum’s penchant for filming his exploits meant building a case against him wasn’t difficult, and by the conclusion, it’s almost beside the point. 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. Nonetheless, this swashbuckling account should hold its audience rapt until the very end.

February 1, 2020

In the United Arab Emirates, winning a falcon race can win you millions of dollars, which is why Irish national Jeffrey Lendrum has persisted for decades in smuggling the eggs of rare raptors. This "Pablo Escobar of the falcon egg trade" now faces another prison sentence after being caught at Heathrow with multiple eggs strapped to his chest. Countering him: Det. Andy McWilliam of the UK's National Wildlife Crime Unit, determined to protect the world's glorious and endangered birds of prey. From the New York Times best-selling author of The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu; with a 75,000-copy first printing and seven-city tour.

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