The Feather Thief

The thief didn’t take a rare oversized edition of J.J. Audubon’s “Birds of America” (priced at $11.5 million at Sotheby’s). He passed by the rare dodo stuffed animals and those very Darwin finches. What he needed were feathers of birds from paradise. Why? In this story, quirks of evolution, a strange, elaborate hobby, and a disastrous obsession intertwine—perhaps best described as a “scientific detective” tale. A rare but vivid bird among subgenres of literature!