Tags
fly tying, Great Britain, London, Natural History Museums, theft from museums, True crime, zoological specimens
I stopped reading another great book when I read the review of this book. Within pages I was hooked! A captivating true crime story of an unlikely thief (a 20 year old, American concert flute player) and his even more unlikely crime (breaking into the Tring Museum –home to the largest and oldest ornithological collections in the world) in 2010 in London. The author is relentless in his pursuit of the facts, the thief(s), and the appalling greed for our natural treasures. I can’t stop thinking about it. Put this title on hold at the library!
“This extraordinary book exposes an international underground that traffics in rare and precious natural resources, yet was previously unknown to all but a few. A page-turning read you won’t soon forget, The Feather Thief tells us as much about our cultural priorities as it does about the crimes themselves. There’s never been anything like it.” —Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, author of The Hidden Life of Dogs
“A fascinating book . . . the kind of intelligent reported account that alerts us to a threat and that, one hopes, will never itself be endangered.” —The Wall Street Journal
“Captivating…Everything the author touches in this thoroughly engaging true-crime tale turns to storytelling gold. . . . Johnson’s flair for telling an engrossing story is, like the beautiful birds he describes, exquisite. . . . A superb tale about obsession, nature, and man’s ‘unrelenting desire to lay claim to its beauty, whatever the cost.’”—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
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