The feather thief : the natural history heist of the century
/ Kirk Wallace Johnson
- London : Windmill Books, 2019
- 297 p., [16] p. of illustrations
Prologue -- Dead birds and rich men. The trials of Alfred Russel Wallace ; Lord Rothschild's museum ; The feather fever ; Birth of a movement ; The Victorian Brotherhood of Fly-tiers ; The future of fly-tying -- The Tring heist. Featherless in London ; Plan for Museum Invasion.Doc ; The case of the broken window ; "A very unusual crime" ; Hot birds on a cold trail ; Fluteplayer 1988 ; Behind bars ; Rot in hell ; The diagnosis ; The Asperger's defense ; The missing skins -- Truth and consequences. The 21st International Fly Tying Symposium ; The lost memory of the ocean ; Chasing leads in a time machine ; Dr. Prum's thumb drive ; "I'm not a thief" ; Three days in Norway ; Michelangelo vanishes ; Feathers in the bloodstream
'A tale of obsession ... vivid and arresting' - The Times One summer evening in 2009, twenty-year-old musical prodigy Edwin Rist broke into the Natural History Museum at Tring, home to one of the largest ornithological collections in the world. Once inside, Rist grabbed as many rare bird specimens as he was able to carry before escaping into the darkness. Kirk Wallace Johnson was waist-deep in a river in New Mexico when his fly-fishing guide first told him about the heist. But what would possess a person to steal dead birds? And had Rist paid for his crime? In search of answers, Johnson embarked upon a worldwide investigation, leading him into the fiercely secretive underground community obsessed with the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying. Was Edwin Rist a genius or narcissist? Mastermind or pawn?
9780099510666
Natural History Museum (London, England)
Theft from museums---Great Britain---Case studies Zoological specimens---Great Britain---Case studies Fly tying---Great Britain---Case studies Aves Fly tying. Theft from museums. Zoological specimens. Criminología Museos de ciencias naturales