Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

The Falcon Thief Book Review

What to Read: The Falcon Thief

By Joshua Hammer
ISBN # 9781501191909
Get Book Here
Buy on Amazon

This is a true-crime adventure about a rogue who trades in rare birds and their eggs, and the wildlife detective determined to stop him. This is a summary of The Falcon Thief Book Review by The Wannabe Naturalist.

On May 3, 2010, an Irish national named Jeffrey Lendrum (originally from Rhodesia in Africa, now Zimbabwe) was apprehended at Britain’s Birmingham International Airport with a suspicious parcel strapped to his body. The parcel contained rare peregrine falcon eggs spirited 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 to become race champions and hunters, and Detective Andy McWilliam of the United Kingdom’s National Wildlife Crime Unit, who’s determined to protect the world’s birds of prey.

Above all, The Falcon Thief whisks readers from the volcanoes of Patagonia to Zimbabwe’s Matobo National Park, and from the Canadian frigid tundra’s 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. Finally, it’s a story that’s part true-crime narrative, part epic adventure. In conclusion, a gripping tale from beginning to end.

About the Author

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

The Falcon Thief Book Reviews from Amazon

“The Falcon Thief practically begs for comparison to Susan Orlean’s 1998 classic The Orchid Thief… After reading this book, one feels sympathy for both the falcon and bustard, and none at all for egg poachers like Lendrum or the falconers who keep them in business.”
— Wall Street Journal

“Joshua Hammer’s gripping The Falcon Thief plunges us into the psyche of the wildlife thief and smuggler Jeffrey Lendrum… With the instinct of a hunter himself, Hammer tracks Lendrum’s nefarious career, structuring the story with elegant precision… The suspense and drama leading up to Lendrum’s ultimate undoing are masterfully constructed and the outcome satisfying.”
— New York Times

“Thrilling”
— Los Angeles Times

“Reading The Falcon Thief, one thinks of Truman Capote, who elaborated on a tiny news story… This is very much what Hammer is after in The Falcon Thief, which can sometimes read like the treatment for a James Bond movie. Like Capote, Hammer has a keen eye for elegant detail.”
— Christian Science Monitor

“A thrilling story”
— Royal Geographic Society

“Joshua Hammer has that rare eye for a thrilling story, and with The Falcon Thief he has found the perfect one— a tale brimming with eccentric characters, obsession, deception, and beauty. It has the grip of a novel, with the benefit of being all true.”
— David Grann, New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon

“I love this book. Josh Hammer has an amazing ability to find truly great yarns, and he’s done this again with The Falcon Thief. It is a tremendous relief to read a book that teleports you out of current politics into a wholly new world that is both magical and thrilling and weird and wholly unknown. Stop, sit, read, think, savor, enjoy.”
— Janet Reitman, bestselling author of Inside Scientology

“Middle Eastern Sheiks. 180 mph apex predators. An agile and fearless, globe-trotting obsessive dangling beneath helicopters and slipping through borders from Patagonia to the high Arctic. The Falcon Thief is more than just a ripping page turner; it is a cautionary tale about what happens when our most precious wildlife becomes status symbol in our diminishing natural world.”
— Carl Hoffman, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Wild Men of Borneo

“You don’t need to know, or care, about birds to enjoy The Falcon Thief. I couldn’t tell a jaybird from a jaywalker, but I loved this book: an international, ornithological whodunit. By the final page, I had learned, and cared, more about the secret world of falcons and the people who love them than I ever thought possible.”
— Eric Weiner, The New York Times bestselling author of The Geography of Genius

“This book moves like a falcon: sleek and fast. It’s an absorbing story of a thief, an obsession, and an astounding bird.”
— Russell Shorto, New York Times bestselling author of Revolution Song and The Island at the Center of the World

“Hammer is one of our great non-fiction storytellers, and he’s got a terrific one here: a true crime saga about how love of nature can go very, very wrong.”
— Bruce Handy, author of Wild Things

“If you love nonviolent true crime, this is a great one, full of fascinating tidbits about the history of falconry, wildlife conservation and crime, and oology.”
— Book Riot

“[A] well-written, engaging detective story that underscores the continuing need for conservation of rare bird species… A sleek, winning nonfiction thriller.”
— Kirkus

“Hammer delivers a vivid tale of obsession and international derring-do… this swashbuckling account should hold its audience rapt until the very end.”
— Publishers Weekly

“Combining adventure and true crime, this gripping narrative is a fascinating and infuriating story that reads more like a novel than nonfiction. The Falcon Thief will appeal to those who also were enthralled by The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson and The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean, and to anyone who enjoys reading about birds, nature and travel.”
— Forbes.

(This Falcon Thief Book Review Summary adapted from the amazon.com listing.)

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