The Falcon Thief : A True Tale of Adventure, Treachery, and the Hunt for the Perfect Bird
by Joshua Hammer
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 of 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 a frigid tundra to the deserts of Dubai, all in pursuit of a reckless man 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.
PB
Canoe Trips
Canoe Trips
