The Feather Thief

This fascinating book came out in 2018. It describes the theft of priceless exotic, mostly tropical, birds by a young salmon fly tier named Edwin Rist at the British Natural History Museum.

The bird collection in the museum was collected during the colonial era by naturalists like Alfred Wallace. Edwin, an American music student studying at the Royal Academy of Music in London, planned an idea to break into the Museum and steal nearly 300, some irreplaceable, bird skins.

It has been years ago I read the book and was thinking about re-reading it. Then this morning I listened to this excellent concise summary of the book which almost feels like reading a detective story. The narrator is obviously not a fly tier as she regularly talks about 'the art of tie flying' rather than 'fly tying'. 😄