The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century

As heard on NPR's This American Life 'Absorbing . . . Though it's non-fiction, The Feather Thief contains many of the elements of a classic thriller.' --Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air 'One of the most peculiar and memorable true-crime books ever.' --Christian Science Monitor From the author of The Fishermen and the Dragon, a rollicking true-crime adventure and a captivating journey into an underground world of fanatical fly-tiers and plume peddlers, for readers of The Stranger in the Woods, The Lost City of Z, and The Orchid Thief. On a cool June evening in 2009, after performing a concert at London's Royal Academy of Music, twenty-year-old American flautist Edwin Rist boarded a train for a suburban outpost of the British Museum of Natural History. Home to one of the largest ornithological collections in the world, the Tring museum was full of rare bird specimens whose gorgeous feathers were worth staggering amounts of money to the men who shared Edwin's obsession: the Victorian