Nonfiction Review: The Feather Thief

Book By Book

I was very excited in August when one of my book groups decided to resume our meetings via Zoom. Our first book chosen for virtual book group this month was The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson. I remember hearing rave reviews when this true crime book was first released in 2018, but I probably wouldn’t have read it on my own. I would have missed out on a truly fascinating, riveting story. That’s one of the many things I love about book groups: they help me to read books I might have otherwise missed.

The very unique crime occurs right in the beginning of the book, in the prologue. The author describes, based on interviews, evidence, and reports, how Edwin Rist, a 20-year-old flautist with London’s Royal Academy of Music, made off with a priceless collection of rare birds from the British Museum of Natural History (listen to audio sample below). The crime was so simple as to be almost laughable. He took the train, at night after a concert, to the town where the museum was, walked to the museum, climbed a wall and broke a window, and climbed into the museum, towing a large suitcase on wheels. Once inside, Rist filled his bag with hundreds and hundreds of preserved rare bird specimens, each of which would yield many feathers that fans of Victorian salmon fly-tying (like Rist) would pay a lot of money for. The author then explains how he himself heard about the theft, while fly fishing in New Mexico, from a river guide and became obsessed with the story, leading to a years-long investigation to try to find the missing birds, few of which had been recovered. He also goes back in time to the 1850′s to describe how all these rare birds were originally collected. Most of those in the museum had been collected by naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, a contemporary of Darwin’s, on lengthy trips through secluded places in Malaysia and other remote locales, specifically seeking out certain rare species only found in localized regions. The history of women’s hats is woven into the story, too, since it created an insatiable appetite for rare, colorful bird feathers. He also tells the reader all about the history of Victorian salmon fly-tying, a hobby that has become an obsession for many modern aficionados, most of whom, ironically, don’t even fish! Weaving in history, science, and the crime itself, Johnson tells this intriguing story in a captivating way.

This is truly one of those “truth is stranger than fiction” tales, filled with so many fascinating and outrageous facts that I kept interrupting my husband’s reading to say, “Hey, listen to this …” Our book group had plenty to talk about, from the early naturalists’ ironic “preservation” of these very rare birds by killing and stuffing them to the outrageous details of the crime itself to the value of the feathers in this unique community. Rist is at the center of this crazy story, and the author includes his own unusual 8-hour interview with him. He also includes plenty of color photos, which we were all eager to pore over to see these colorful birds, expensive salmon flies, and outrageous women’s hats. Despite Johnson’s best efforts over years to help the museum recover more of the birds, some mysteries remain at the end of the book. It’s a well-written and compelling almost-too-crazy-to-believe true crime story that kept us all engrossed. 

308 pages, Viking

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Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible. The sample is from the prologue, describing the crime in detail--I guarantee you'll be hooked and will want to know more!

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