The Falcon Thief

September 1, 2019

In the United Arab Emirates, winning a falcon race can win you millions of dollars, which is why Irish national Jeffrey Lendrum has persisted for decades in smuggling the eggs of rare raptors. This "Pablo Escobar of the falcon egg trade" now faces another prison sentence after being caught at Heathrow with multiple eggs strapped to his chest. Countering him: Det. Andy McWilliam of the UK's National Wildlife Crime Unit, determined to protect the world's glorious and endangered birds of prey. From the New York Times best-selling author of The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu; with a 75,000-copy first printing and seven-city tour.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 1, 2019
The story of an unrepentant birds'-egg thief who found a lucrative market for rare wild falcons on the Arabian Peninsula. In his latest page-turner, Hammer (The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race To Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts, 2016, etc.) explores two reckless and ultimately disastrous obsessions of people of a certain class and sense of entitlement: egg collecting, which gained currency during the Victorian era, and falconry, pushed to new competitive heights by Arabian princes. The author compellingly chronicles the exploits of Jeffrey Lendrum--who was arrested several times during the last two decades attempting to transport rare, endangered peregrine falcon eggs and others with intent to sell to rich Arabian clients--whom he portrays as a destructive combination of knowledgeable bird-watcher and destroyer of "the fragile, symbiotic relationship between man and the wild." Early on during his youth in Rhodesia, Lendrum's father passed along his passion of observing wildlife. As a young boy, he was enlisted to raid the nests of wild birds so that the eggshells, emptied of their yokes and dried, could be added to his father's collection. Despite the risk and illegality of the enterprise, Lendrum learned to hike and scale great heights--in Wales, Canada, and even Patagonia--to attain peregrine eggs, which many members of the royalty in Dubai covet for their lucrative racing games. In this well-written, engaging detective story that underscores the continuing need for conservation of rare bird species, Hammer delineates the trials of Andy McWilliam, the retired policeman who grew admirably to serve in his capacity as officer for the National Wildlife Crime Unit, which helped prosecute Lendrum and others. Throughout, the author beautifully renders this tale "of human obsession and nature's fragility, of man's perpetual insistence on imposing his will upon the wildness of our world, and of the tiny handful of investigators, most unrecognized, working to safeguard the environment's bounty and wonder." A sleek, winning nonfiction thriller.

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December 23, 2019
Hammer (The Badass-Librarians of Timbuktu), a contributing writer to Smithsonian magazine, delivers a vivid tale of obsession and international derring-do. The book opens in 2010 at the U.K.’s Birmingham International Airport, where Jeffrey Lendrum was discovered with 14 bird eggs hidden in socks tied around his abdomen. Airport security alerted the National Wildlife Crime Unit, whose dedicated senior investigator, Andy McWilliam, suspected Lendrum of involvement with the black market for birds of prey, one driven by demand on the Arabian Peninsula. There Hammer pauses the modern-day narrative and takes readers back in time for a digressive, bird-centric journey, from falconry’s millennia-old roots in the Middle East, to Lendrum’s 2001 bird egg hunt across the frozen tundra of northern Quebec, a key moment in his long smuggling career. Hammer also checks in on the ill-gotten collections of several other underground egg collectors, before weaving all the narrative strands back to Birmingham. Lendrum’s penchant for filming his exploits meant building a case against him wasn’t difficult, and by the conclusion, it’s almost beside the point. The book’s ultimate concern isn’t with the legal case, but with understanding the roots of Lendrum’s fixation on falcons, and it’s here where Hammer arguably falls short. Nonetheless, this swashbuckling account should hold its audience rapt until the very end.