Who is Edwin Rist? Genius or Narcissist? Mastermind or Pawn?

One summer evening in 2009, twenty-year-old musical prodigy Edwin Rist broke into the British Museum of Natural History. Hours later, he slipped away with a suitcase full of rare bird specimens collected over the centuries from across the world, all featuring a dazzling array of priceless feathers.

Kirk Wallace Johnson was waist-deep in a river in New Mexico when he first heard about the heist, from his fly-fishing guide. When he discovered that the thief evaded prison, and that half the birds were never recovered, Johnson embarked upon a years-long worldwide investigation which led him deep into the fiercely secretive underground community obsessed with the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying.

A page-turning story of a bizarre and shocking crime,The Feather Thiefshines a light on our fraught relationship with the natural worlds most beautiful and valuable wonders, and one mans relentless quest for justice.

Kirk Wallace Johnsonserved in Iraq with the US Agency for International Development in Baghdad and Fallujah as the Agencys first co-ordinator for reconstruction in the war-torn city. He went on to found The List Project to Resettle Iraqi Allies. His work on behalf of Iraqi refugees was profiled byThis American Life,60 Minutes, theToday Show, the subject of a feature-length documentary,The List, and a memoir,To Be a Friend is Fatal.

A Senior Fellow at the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy, and the recipient of fellowships from the American Academy in Berlin, Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the Wurlitzer Foundation, his writing has appeared inThe New Yorker, theNew York Timesand theWashington Post. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, son and daughter.