The Falcon Thief

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.