The Falcon Thief: A True Tale of Adventure, Treachery, and the Hunt for the Perfect Bird (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781501191886)

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.

Author: Joshua Hammer
ISBN-10: 1501191888
ISBN-13: 9781501191886
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Language: English
Published: 02/11/2020
Pages: 336
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.40w x 1.40d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 02/01/2020 pg. 51
Kirkus Reviews 12/01/2019 pg. 132
Publishers Weekly 12/23/2019
Shelf Awareness 02/25/2020