Kirk Wallace Johnson’s “The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century” recounts Rist’s odd crime and its even more curious aftermath. He intended to fence the birds’ extravagantly colored plumage at high prices to fellow aficionados in hopes of raising enough cash to support both his musical career and his parents’ struggling Labradoodle-breeding business in the Hudson Valley.
Under the nose of a hapless security guard, Rist ransacked storage drawers and absconded with the preserved skins of 299 tropical birds, including specimens collected by the legendary naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace in the mid-19th century. In June 2009, Edwin Rist, a 20-year-old American flutist studying at the Royal Academy of Music, smashed a window at the Museum of Natural History in Tring, near London, and pulled off one of the more bizarre robberies of recent decades. THE FEATHER THIEF Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century By Kirk Wallace Johnson Illustrated.
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