Tv television for serious readers. Good evening everyone and welcome to politics and prose im Bradley Graham the coowner of the store. We are delighted to have joshua hamare humor with us. He was here for his last book about four years ago and that one of course was very popular and it told a riveting story of how an archivist in timbuktu in northern mali managed with some very brave helpers to smuggle more than three and 50,000 historical manuscripts out from under militant jihadists. Someone with an eye for some really truly great stories. And hes done it again with his new book the falcon thief the falcon thief another true and gripping tale this one about wildlife smuggling. Generalist working for newsweek over nearly two decades. They joined them in the 1980s. Within a few years he was off to cover the rest of the world. With things that were in nairobi. On back here in the u. S. For the past decade cade and a half hes continued to report and traveled widely four years ago he won the National Report it was still a prizewinning story that told the story of a physician in sierra leone. The effort to control the outbreak there. In addition to the timbuktu book he has written three other t books. Another about the siege in 2002. In the third about the 1923 earthquake. It has been said that he isports on things like a journalist and writes like a novelist. The book disk grabs the exports who for years traveled the world falcons and other are used for sports. The other central character in the story is the detective from britains nationalized crime unit. And was determined to catch him. It is a thrilling fastpaced chronicle but its more than that. Its more than just a detective story set with the rarefied world. And astounding birds. A cautionary tale about how the love of nature can go very wrong and what happens when it becomes a status status symbol. Ladies and gentlemen please join me in welcoming josh what humor [applause]. That is a great detailed introduction. I think this will always be my favorite bookstore and a place to talk about these things. Thanks everybody for talking and coming out. It has always impressed me. Over the course of doing this particular talk three or four times to basically present a narrative without giving away the entire book. I will very quickly sign and start with a introduction. The bad librarian came out in 2016 and it was a story i have followed for many years. One to timbuktu and one tamale and continue to visit over the years and got a couple of smithsonian assignments to write about. I was pretty well versed in that story when al qaeda invaded the country and people i know actually got caught up in the violence in the capturing of the entire two thirds of the country. It was sort of like a story that i owned i feltt an made sense that the book would come out of it. It was like an act of desperation. I was looking for another project. I have thrown out some terrible ideas. Ut i dont even want to gon into them. One day in 2017 i was in london with my kids and i just happened to pick up the london times and was just sitting in a cafe in hempstead and there is a very was a very short article on about 12 or so about this character named jeffrey lynn. The tabloids love those bad puns. This was is a story about this. Notorious thief known for helicopter in and repelling down cliffs to reachng rare falcon angst they have vanishednd and been rearrested. And now the world and conservation world were alarmed that he might be coming back to any might be back on the hunt. That was on the hunt. And enough to ignite my interest. I began investigating it further. In becoming as obsessed as he was about his eggs. The nonfiction. Plunging deeper and deeper into your subject. Without giving too much away. The story begins in a shower room in the emirates first. And in Birmingham International airport. A middleage white fella. Going into the washroom. And disappeared he began with a job as a security monitor. And in the Shopping Mall. After 20 minutes the guys came out. They go inside the bathroom. Ndwe the towels still folded. Think back, toilet, nothing. He starts rooting around. And he ends up he finds a diaper and sees the diaper been in the corner of the room. C he sees an egg carton or with a single painted red egg. An easter egg inside. It was left by the guys guy still in there. What could this possibly mean it probably has something to do with drugs. H the Counterterrorism Police are brought to the scene they take him away. And strip search him. Inside the woolen socks. They are not trained at all. With the irish national. Why are they carrying raw duck eggs. They need to wear raw eggs wrapped around his body because it will prevent him from stupid and lead to a tightening of the lower back muscles. At that point they summoned and make a phone call. There had been a few good ones. They tend to give it to Andy Mcwilliams. I was a bad guy, good guy story. Certainly with britain. Mi with the most famous policeman. He realizes it is made. Probably not to hide them but to keep them warm. From the description he is instantly knows that they are there. I actually have a better image of one but for some reason it did not download basically, this is a highly protected bird the fastest bird on the planet. It can go into a stoop and die. Mcwilliam knows that they are highly prized by the falconers. Especially the wealthy shakes of the United Arab Emirates heard rumors about this market existing. For these falconers. Here he believes just from the description he may have a smuggler on his hands. Let them go down from liverpool. A portrait of them in 2010. This was in may 2010. Thats what he looked like back then. So mcwilliam comes down into interviews this guy and he is still lying and telling the same stories. D mcwilliam pretty quickly lets him know he is not dealing with an idiot he is dealing with a wildlife expert. He have taken them. They were dead and he was only bringing them down to south africa. They were pretty sure they were lying. They had been to one of the greatest concentrations of peregrine falcons in the u. S. K. Is found in this former coal mining area. They are sheltered from the wind. The trees were all cut down even a century or more ago. For them to align the incredible network. C the fierce winds and the rocky ledges here. Protected from the winds. They dont really nest. They just find these ledges. To protect them from rolling off. You have to imagine the vast landscape. They were somehow able to acquire 14 of these. Theyre pretty sure they have a professional on their hands. This is a trick trip i took later. Y that is in the mcwilliam. Let me give you a quick background sketch. He is a liverpool cop. The file worked with marines. Really grew up with no options. He barely finished school became a cop. C he became quite well known as an investigator. They decided they were tied tired of that. And suicides and murders. He was also a very talented rugby player. Gl they drove them to drop out. The birdwatching that they found let him into this subterranean world. A bird trader people who love trained pigeons. The exotic birds who actually stick birds inside to plastic tubes and send them on horrific journeys from thailand or the amazon. To satisfy the hunger of these rare bird fanatics. Another odd little aspect of this. A very british phenomenon middle edge middle aged men. And has the remote corners of the uk. Stealing eggs ever rare birds. In protected birds and blowing out the embryos and mounting them in collections. Thats all what we have to keep secret. Mcwilliam found this whole subculture the very few people knew existed. Hundreds of them. And almost singlehandedly driving this. It was operation easter. Crackdown on these guys. By the time they come across the radar screen he is wellversed almost as much about rare birds. I go here this is the market that mcwilliams knew existed. This is a scene taken in p dubai. It has been around for at least 3,000 years a lot of people believe it started in the arab world. A migration over the desert. They would trap these worlds. And then train them. They started out as hunters. We are talking even before the arrival of islam. The falconry developed. And they brought it to europe cd china. It became more of a sport in a recreational thing. It was the interaction almost mystical interaction. Even though it spread around the world and it kind of die out. And never really expanded beyond this. P it became very closely identified with arab culture. The traditions even though the desert was with the discovery of oil. They remain really intensely embedded in the culture. A trainer of a peregrine. This is kind of passion that the walt disney falconers and members of the royal family had. The crowd prince of dubai. The ruler of dubai. They have the state of thee art hospitals with the staff of veterinarians from all over the world. They pay huge salaries too. In the last 20 years as the desert has gotten smaller. And the natural prey of the birdshi has disappeared yet this new phenomenon called falcon racing. And even though the natural tendency is to drop. They are trained using everything from little mini airplanes and drones to go verdict. Ed and they gather at the race tracks. They have to go all over the world to find the greatest birds in the races. You cant trade almost every raptor in the world. In the very severe restrictions. You have to have a certificate of scientific research. If youre not part of the scientific crowd. To feed this great hunger for birds there is a whole captive breeding industry. Here is trade worth millions of dollars. Mostly these wealthy shakes. It cannot be compared to the wild ones that come out of nest. Natural selection has bred these birds over the century. Ne these are the birds of that they want. Theyre willing to go to any length. They will provide these birds with them. They only inhabit the most difficult to reach places in the world. Here we go. I became very curious to find out they figured immediately or pretty quickly that he have a global smuggler on his hands. Q and if you let him go he would escape and go back and do this again. He became fixated. Hit 36 hours to persuade a prosecutor to hold him to basically have bird eggs on him. Have no clue about the laws that they were breaking. They were really down to the wild wire. There was an egg smuggler to hold without bail with a difficult sell. He was able to keep him without bail while they begin digging into his story. Eg i did when i found my way ledger how does one become an egg smuggler. What led him to the arab world. What in that background would have created this he grew up in bulawayo the second city of within rhodesia and he grew up basically as father was a Third Generation white african they come originally fromme ireland. And then southern rhodesia. It was a magnificent geological phenomenon. Have the amazing rock structure. With eagles and hawks. Eagles and hawks. On the planet. T. And this is basically the backyard. He became involved with his father. In the late 70s he became involved in the survey this is called the black eagle which is one of the strongest eagles in the world. Pretty much nowhere else in the world. This became landrum and his father. They spent months observing this. This is where he learned to climb trees in this is just a scene a people and this is the bird. Looking at an area. Later it adds like the falcons too. A hundred to 200 feet 80 to 200 feet off the ground. This is how he grew up. This is the kind of formation that you see. Ee a perfect kind of terrain for these creatures. Another bird that this is called a crown eagle. S one of the rarest raptors in the world. Its known for having these giant talentsle and sweeping small children off the ground. With two occasions that i know of. This is his world. To sum up that story basically he was on the survey. Learning everything about birds. At the same time his father let him while he was there. And learning the locations of every nest inside the park. They were secretly taking eggs as a teenager and putting them in their own private collection at the same time. Selling them abroad. Even as a 17 or 18yearold his father was leading him down a path fi as he ended up being arrested for illegal possession of eggs the big trial of interest. I wouldve been zimbabwe at a zimbabwe at the time. The consequence was he was disgraced. He have to do flee the country bit by bit was led into this Global Enterprise gearing up and the oil money was flowing. The races were about to begin. There is a big hunger to get their hands on the most beautiful birds in the world. Its kind of hard to chronicle exactly what he did on his missions. The police believed not only did he tell me about one of these missions and this particular mission was at the arctic the falcon which is the pure white not always pure white but the most sought after. They are the biggest falcons in the world. They absolutely love to them because they arere incredibly difficult to keep alive. And the sub arctic in siberia. There was this growing desire for falcons among the arab shakes. And very hard to find even commercial breeders who were there. The only way to get your hand on one. Was to send them up to the far north. To embark on a craved exposition they told me the whole story in which a little bit i will give you here. This is from the video that the accomplish shot back in his prime. Mullen brought along the video, these guys never imagined one day video would end up in the hands of the National Wildlife crime unit in britain and in a book. But this is these guys as they were aby a shake in the middle east, not to give the whole story away. How the connection was made. Suffice it to say that other acquaintances led him to the arab market and he was just matched, total selfstarter. He was the one who came up with the idea of going aband sold it to the arabs. This is before they head off to it village called could you walk, way up north near hudson bay and this is actually the helicopter perched very near a cliff, what they would do is spot venture falcon, sometimes a couple hundred feet above the ground or over these frozen lakes and landrum would tie fasten your harness and a rope around themselves a pilot with then ascended to a thousand feet near these cliffs and then lender would would reach out and grab the eggs off these nest. Just plundering this pristine environment places that almost no one had ever been. In the plane tickets and everything to prove it wasnt just ahe had to quickly get to that it was a very close relationship, there was a huge fight between two men after couple years after this in which it involved mullens girlfriend in a complicated relationship stealing the girlfriend, custody fights they had a huge falling out and mullen was waiting for the opportunity to get even with lunchroom as he called ipme, karma is a abhe became this a credible source of stories about landrums life which stuff that had never come to light including this incredible expedition. This is actually one of the nest sites that mullen took a picture of as they were about to, i think those chicks had just been hatched. He had timed it perfectly so you need to time it so that you arrive when the eggs are viable but theyre not within the first three weeks. Theyre still too early and have to be kept in absolutely the same temperature. At that point turning the eggs slightly can kill for them. They have to wait until they are somewhat viable but also not wait too long so you dont run the risk of the egg actually hatching as you trying to sneak it through security or which has happened, there are a couple big thieves, actually happened in the 1990s abits an art form not only do you have to find these birds in this vast wilderness area. They are territorial so they have huge areas. Not like theres all this stuff was new to me but i found myself getting more and more caught up in the weirdness of it all. These birds establish their territory like five or 10 miles. There might be a nest today are and you are in your helicopter and have to sweep along another five miles looking along the cliffs until you spot something and then they would assess whether or not you could rappel down and land the helicopter on top of the cliff and rappel down or whether it was so steep that they would have to do the landrum would have to descend from a rope. They spent basically about 10 days doing this. The capture Something Like 30 eggs, which is significant part of the environmental bounty of this pristine part of the world. It was an intimate pitcher falcon extinct but it was nasty business. Mullen of course was consumed by guilt about it but he did it anyway. In fact, he did it the next year too. To make a long story short, sorry, to condense this because i dont want to get too much of it away. Basically landrum continues on this incredible course, getting more reckless taking more chances eventually it leads to this 2010 Birmingham Airport incident where Andy Mcwilliam busts him. Because mcwilliams kept him without bail, he is able to dig up a lot of landrums history and proves this is no ordinary bird egg collector but somebody with global reach is been doing it for years as a professional making money, plundering the environment. Probably with cronies in the middle east. He is working this and there is a trial, highly covered trial because the british media cant resist these elements of ex Rhodesian Army guy a helicopter repelling arab shakes, top falcon eggs. Landrum ends up getting, forgive me for not knowing details of my own book, they could to 2. 5 year prison sentence. Which is the first time, hes been doing this for 20 years already and hes been caught a couple times but always managed to sneak out and get through with a fine. It happened in zimbabwe, happened again in qucbec. Hes always managed to skate to the thin ice and survived by paying off somebody and keeping his name out of the papers. Thanks to mcwilliam mcdowell disguised all of the British Press. The video of him dangling as he is carrying the actual dvd in his carryon luggage. Mcwilliam grabs that. X put up on youtube. Everything is out there now and landrum is in prison. Mcwilliam is kind of hoping that at this point, the guy has like its time now hes learned his lesson. Jail and exposure, Media Exposure its gonna make it very difficult for him to continue along the lines of the life is like for 20 to 25 years. Basically he does get out of jail and he does make this regiment attempt to go straight, i think. People family members, friends, they find work normally. Something about those eggs you just cant stop. Its in his nature. The next time we discover landrum, he is arrested in brazil hes been stealing albino falcon eggs in chilean patagonia in this place, is probably ik National Park where i followed his trail down. This is a harsh volcanic landscape with all of these dead volcanoes also an absolute haven for raptors. Another weird distant part of the world where raptors congregate and landrum somehow discovered this as part of the story i dont know how he found these volcanoes in the middle of nowhere. And assessed that they were likely spots for these albino falcon. The problem now is that landrum is a very wellknown character. His name is out there, hes more and more reckless. He draws a lot of suspicion about what hes up to including letting the hotel clerk see his incubators and climbing equipment and house hotel room. The hotel clerk googled his name and the first thing he sees is this picture of a video of landrum dangling from a rope in northern qucbec. He gets to read page after page of stories about this interNational Wildlife deep called by Andy Mcwilliams quoted as a master thief on a global scale. Mike what have we got here . A trap is laid, landrum is eventually captured in brazil. He is sentenced to five years, 4. 5 years in prison in a brazilian jail. Does it speak a word of portuguese. Is facing a very difficult time. At that point, he escapes to the jungle to argentina and then back to south africa where i caught up with him in late 2017 where, again, this was a long search to get a hold of landrum. He ducked me for many many months and i was intent on finding him and asking him why are you doing this . Whats the middle east connection explains in your life. I have a lot of questions. He finally agreed to meet me at a Shopping Mall in pretoria and we hooked up there, it was a weird income to i found him to be a likable charming character and complete unrepentant liar. It was kind of hard to have these two identities. By this point i knew so much about his life and i could ask very specific detailed questions and yet he had an answer to psyche advantage of the counterterrorism guys about the chiropractor and the duck eggs. He had answers, he was fast, if you didnt know anything about him you would come away convinced he was this victim. He was a true conservationist had been out to save these poor birds time and time again. Each time by taking them from threatened positions or saving them from Pigeon Fanciers or ddt or whatever. He had a story behind every heist. He would come away thinking, maybe this guy is really this sort of victim he said these terrible miscarriages of justice. If you really knew his story you realize he was just a masterful liar. At the same time you could find yourself liking him, you are also, you are kind of repulsed by this incredible pattern of mendacity. At any rate, my final words to landrum that day were, jeffrey, are you gonna go back to doing this . I found if i did challenge him but played along and acknowledged, yes you are doing this for the sake of the birds, but are you going to continue your crusade to save the birds or are you out of this at this point . By this point he had prostate cancer, a bad car accident in johannesburg. He said the nerves in his neck were abhe said and gone and out of this i cant do this anymore. I too old and i too tired and am too sick. Meka tell you what happens at that point. I leave landrum. We shake hands, we go our separate ways. I will leave you with one final image [laughter] i will not tell you exactly where that picture was taken or the circumstances behind it. I already feel like ive given away too much of the story. Im going to end the narrative there before i completely sway everybody from buying the book. No. The book explores all crazy ab the world of egg collectors and any mcwilliams life and naturalism. I try to do a lot of different things. In the matter of my one of the writers i admire most in the world, susan orally. Im happy to say a couple reviews have made the orchid thief licomparison. This took me as far away from the world of International Terrorism and diplomacy and geopolitics that marked my last book to a certain extent. Happy to dive into what i thought was a great story without any larger geopolitical and environmental implications but perhaps not geopolitical. On that note, im happy to open up the floor to the audience and where are people . Please take the microphone if you have questions. Anybody have a question or two to ask . [applause] click some curious, that the falcon thievery happened in Northern Canada from what you said . Works in this particular case. Did the canadian authorities charge them . The canadian authorities a did he get to be on a this is 2001 they managed to get away the only way we know about that expedition is through the accomplice betrayed him and had the videos. They didnt have the evidence they were trying to smuggle them out of the country they could only give him abthis guy skates the night and got away with a fine and told him dont ever set foot in canada again. At that point paul mullen his accomplice changed his name legally. I cant reveal his real name but i was told i could call him by his own name since that doesnt no longer exist. They hit him with a 20,000 fine and then sent them on their way. How much would he get on average . Its a really hard question. For instance, its been documented some of these beautiful white jury falcons pure white ones have been sold legally in the legal market for like 275,000. With eggs its a little different because one day understand, i talked to a couple experts including somebody who tried to place value at his 2010 trial on the 14 eggs because you dont know you have to assume maybe a third are not going to catch. Destroyed and transported or whatever. The female falcons are worth more than the male. The female mfalcons are bigger and better racers. They pay more for them. He placed a value on the 14 total of about 120,000 for all 14 but that was a calculation that a lot of people say was way too low. But that was like a months work for landrum. Possibly more. 120,000 is not bad for several days of climbing around the cliffs of wales and of course the preparation involved in finding those areas in the wilderness. Are these protected under societies or the Migratory Bird treaty act . It societies. Theres a lot of overlapping legislation that was always extremely confusing for me. I didnt want to get too bogged down because i didnt even understand it. The brits and European Union have all these laws and conventional International Trade and endangered species. These are all considered i think they call them article 1 or index one birds. Appendix 1 or appendix 2 . These are all appendix 1 which means you cant trade them. You cant market them. You cant have them. The wild ones im talking about. Unless you have a license as a scientist to study them and thats really rare to get. Anyone else . Deborah. [inaudible question] just when we spoke over the phone over the course of six months yes. When is this going to be a movie . [laughter] thats a good question. In development. Thats good to hear. I dont have anything to do with it. I dont sit around waiting. Ive been in the business too long. If you have these eggs wrapped around him i assume th this picture is sort of that, does that not show up when he goes through security . How do you smuggle eggs on an airplane . Some of the aspects of this where he would go through metal detectors and metal detectors often he had them obscured enough so they would not show up. This picture was taken as he was coming into heathrow airport. He had already gotten to johannesburg airport with these presumably kept strapped to his stomach. For various reasons a guy who got more and more reckless as this career dragged on. He just kept making more and more stupid mistakes and was busted. Donatellab. Going back to the transportation of these eggs, he wasnt taking Economy Class to london with those eggs on him, was he . I dont think he had enough miles accumulated. [laughter] because they worked in his bag. He was in the emirates Business Class lounge in 2010 when he was busted. Usually he and mullen travel Business Class a lot whats mullens first introduction to him his clandestine life was when landrum tried to bring two letter felt live letter falcons two a old abas before he really moved into the egg business, stuff in his pocket and placed in a backpack and put in the carryon of Virgin Atlantic flight. Were they alive . They were alive and began screeching. The he would have to run and take them into the toilet and sc feed them is little liver and egg yolk and mix to get them back to sleep and put them back on top. This was mullens first realization he was dealing with a very crazy person. Can you tell us about the psychology of this . Why is he doing it . Very good question click there must be an obsession there. Of course. Thats my first question. The second one is just as interesting. Can you tell us about your psychology . [laughter] why . [laughter] why . 2 and a half hours of my life doing the story. [laughter] its all about obsession. Did you dream in the past few years of this . Okay. Theres something there. About landrum, this is a guy who obviously his father was a bit ethically challenged. His father was arrested abnot everybody in the Landrum Family became criminals. His brother and sister are perfectly normal. Conventional people to some extent. Landrum obviously was closest to the father the two had very similar interests. They stole together they research act togethers this appears to have been landrums med pa from an early age. People who knew him growing up said he was always pushing the envelope, he was always challenging authority, wanted to be different, was doing it and love the physical thrill of going after these birds and birds nests. Going back to the time he was 11 years old 12 years old he was doing this, stealing eggs out of nests. It was a weird compulsion you find often with these wildlife criminals. For instance, these egg thieves that mcwilliam spent several years busting come these people who collect these eggs passionately, hundreds thousand, literally thousands of eggs stash them in their attic and go up just to gaze at them. This is a crazy obsession that onlandrum i think suffered from but there was also of course a athe egg collectors do the same thing they loved the danger they loved the challenge of the client. You talk to some of these people the physical risk the defiance of authority they know its illegal. They get a total charge out of it. Landrum took it to another level and he had through connections that you will read about when you buy the book you will find out how he made that arab connection he just happen to be kind of in the right place at the right time and that way. He was led into doing this for commercial reasons. Although as i think i said, theres no indication he really got rich from this. The New York Times review calls meet the Pablo Escobar of the illegal egg trade or something. The Pablo Escobar title he conferred upon himself to me ironically saying, my first time the first time i talked to him everybody wants to make me out to be the Pablo Escobar. I think i published that in the outside magazine piece about it and the British Press dpicked i up and suddenly he was always the Pablo Escobar of the illegal egg trade. It was said in complete sarcasm. It became the epithet he became known as. So about me . Why this story . Or do you want a general psychological . [laughter] i think, had been a Foreign Correspondent for a lot of years and i kind of morphed a little bit and became interested in narrative longform, narrative nonfiction i like to find stories and that led me to the bad ass librarians of timbuktu which was just a good yarn. I became less, i wanted to tell, i think what worked about the bad ass librarian of timbuktu as it had a hero and morality play set in a very strange part of the world masonic, allow me to flex my writing muscles to develop characters. Its what i wanted to do with the next book. This story somehow resonated obviously a completely different story from a bad ass librarians of timbuktu but had a lot of elements. It had potentially great sensual character, as long as i can balance it with the good guy because i dont think you would want to just read 270 pages about a villain. So i was fortunate enough to have what i thought was just a very appealing Police Officer who had this weird fixation on bird crime. To balance out, a couple people have told me they actually like landrum more and found mcwilliam to be basically an administrative geek. That seems to be a rare view. People seem to like the balance sof characters. This story just seemed to have all the elements that i like to do in a story. Unlike telling stories. In book form. And i also like kind of penetrating subcultures and worlds i dont know anything about. I really knew next to nothing about falconry or eggs are ab i love birds. But not in any sort of Jonathan Frantz and passionate bird obsessive gazing way. I did appreciate that. This is actually this experience made me more appreciative. But, so particularly a birder but i do appreciate and love them more than i did previously. So yeah, ever know, i love environmental stuff, contributing writer to outside magazine ive always loved, this struck me as having the opportunity to if you follow this trail of this wcriminal think about the amazing places you would go. I used to cover war zones but now, i dont want to go to war zones but going to like the desert and volcanic desert of patagonia for all these reasons, it spoke to me that all the other ideas i hey had did not. Anyone else . Kathleen, can you step up to the e microphone . Sorry. This relates really to an earlier question but do you think in the course of the pretrial proceedings that anyone did a psychiatric evaluation of landrum . Not that im aware of. You dont get a lot about out of these british cops. Its hard to get them to tell you anything. It was hard. All the, i tried to get a hold of interrogation tapes, transcripts. The freedom ai filed the freedom of information act request. They told me everything they denied they said everything was destroyed they had to keep it for five years and destroy everything. I got very little. I wanted the counterterrorism story they wouldnt talk to me. So what went on with psychology, may be a psychological evaluation but just another one of those mysteries. Mitch . Thank you josh. This is fascinating. Given how lucrative this was erother other lenders out there . W how expensive is the scheme . As i said, i dont think it was all that lucrative for landrum he didnt seem to be m after it really for that particularly extravagant lifestyle he seemed to be in it for the thrill. But yes, i did some research into this it is such a clandestine world and you cant get anything out of the arabs, the shakes. Its really even taboo for most people, even the breeders. There appeared to be some, they busted occasional trappers up in the wilderness of siberia or passion water pakistan there was a Tv Documentary in the uk in the 90s that laid a trap where a guy actually posed as a producer or host of the show posed as an arab shake and lured out a couple of these middlemen. We know this world exists. But its never been as clearly outlined and tangible as its been in the case of jeffrey landrum. I think we were out of time but abthis is nonfiction. It reads like fiction. Not in the least. Number ive tried to be as faithful as i can to the truth. [applause] [applause] thank you josh, what a fascinating world you led us into. His book is available at the checkout desk. You will be up here signing. Please form a line to the right of the table and please help our staff i folding up your chairs. Thanks again for coming. Here is a look at what you will see tonight on booktv and prime time. At 6 30 p. M. Eastern we take a look at recent books about the trump administration. Then historian leanna keyes recounts the origins of the republican party. Journalist Eileen Zimmerman reports on white collar drug addiction. Robert plumb discusses how harriet tubman, clara barton, Harriet Beecher stowe and other women affected the civil war. And serenas avon provides a history of the 1770 boston massacre. Find more information on your Program Guide or online at booktv. Org. Readers. Good evenin coowner of community bookstore. [applause] shouldnt sit ride me about this crowd. We are thrilled to welcome rebecca solnit, for her new book reflections of my nonexistence. She will be in conversation with leslie jamison, please