The Feather Thief

cutter. After clearing an opening, he lifted the suitcase to the ledge, hoisted himself up, and glanced anxiously about.  No sign of the guard. There was a space of several feet between his perch on the wall and the building s nearest window, forming a small ravine. If he fell, he could injure himself or worse, make  a clamor that would  summon security. But he d known this part wouldn t be easy.

Crouched on  top  of the  wall,  he reached  toward the  window with the glass cutter and began to grind it along the pane. Cutting glass was harder  than  he had anticipated, though, and as he struggled to carve an opening, the glass cutter slipped from his hand and fell into the ravine. His mind raced. Was this a sign? He was think- ing about  bailing  on the whole  crazy scheme when  that voice, the one that  had urged him onward these past months, shouted Wait a minute! You can t give up now. You ve come all this way!

He crawled  back down  and picked up a rock. Steadying himself atop the wall, he peered around in search of guards before bashing the window  out, wedging his suitcase through the shard-strewn opening,  and climbing into the British Natural History Museum.

Unaware that he had just tripped an alarm in the security guard s office, Edwin pulled out the LED light, which cast a faint glow in front of him as he made his way down the hallways toward the vault, just as he d rehearsed in his mind.

He wheeled his suitcase quietly through corridor after corridor, drawing  ever closer to the most beautiful  things he had ever seen. If he pulled this off, they would bring him fame, wealth, and prestige. They would solve his problems. He deserved them.

He entered  the vault, its hundreds of l

in conveying the gravity of this natural-history 'heist of the century,' and one of The Feather Thief s greatest strengths is the excitement, horror, and amazement it evokes. It s nonfiction that reads like fiction, with plenty of surprising moments.
Outside

A riveting read.
Nature 

A literary police sketch part natural history yarn, part detective story, part the stuff of tragedy.  
Smithsonian

Within pages I was hooked. This is a weird and wonderful book . . . Johnson is a master of pacing and suspense . . . It s a tribute to [his] storytelling gifts that when I turned the last page I felt bereft. Maggie Fergusson, The Spectator (London)

A riveting story about mankind s undeniable desire to own nature s beauty and a spellbinding examination of obsession, greed, and justice . . .[told] in engrossing detail. . . . A gripping page-turner.  
Bustle

Enthralling.
HelloGiggles

Richly informative, with handy illustrations, endlessly fascinating and crackingly entertaining, The Feather Thief is the kind of true-crime narrative that gives Erik Larson's much-lauded The Devil in the White City a run for the money.
Shelf Awareness

Highly entertaining . . . journalism at its best . . . If you know nothing about fly-fishing or tying, it doesn t matter, as long as you like a well-written story.
Karen Gallagher, The Baltimore Sun's Roughly Speaking podcast

Reads like a whodunit . . . I could not put it down.
Tom Rosenbauer, The Orvis Fly Fishing Guide Podcast

This is the type of book I absolutely love one that takes a seemingly obscure topic and shines a brilliant and bizarre and endlessly fascinating light upon it. The crime itself is riveting, but Kirk Wallace Johnson s portrayal of the crazy world of feather fanatics makes this an unforgettable read.
Michael Finkel, author of The Stranger in the Woods

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

[An] enthralling account of a truly bizarre crime. . . . Johnson goes deep into the exotic bird and feather trade and concludes that though obsession and greed know no bounds, they certainly make for a fascinating tale. The result is a page-turner that will likely appeal to science, history, and true crime readers.
Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

A remarkably compelling story of obsession and history.
Booklist, Starred Review

You'll never look at a feather the same way again after reading this riveting detective story . . . [The Feather Thief] brilliantly weaves together Alfred Russel Wallace, the surprisingly shadowy history of fly fishing, conservation and the plumage of the most beautiful birds on earth.  
The Bookseller (UK)

A true-crime tale that weaves seemingly unrelated threads a museum break-in; the development of evolutionary theory; a case of post-Iraq PTSD; endangered birds; and (above all) the murky underworld of fly-tying obsessives into a spellbinding narrative tapestry.
Mark Adams, author of Turn Right at Machu Picchu
 
A captivating tale of an unlikely thief and his even more unlikely crime, and a meditation on obsession, greed, and the sheer fascination in something as seemingly simple as a feather.
Paul Collins, author of The Murder of the Century


A stirring examination of the devastating effects of human greed on endangered birds, a powerful argument for protecting our environment and, above all, a captivating crime story.
Peter Wohlleben, author of The Hidden Life of Trees

This gem of a book, about a heist of archival birds, is marvelous, moving, and transcendent. I can t stop thinking about it.  
Dean King, author of Skeletons on the Zahara and The Feud 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