Statement good evening everybody and welcome. I am the coowner of the store along with my wife and we are delighted to have joshua hemmer back with this at p p. Joshua was here for his last book, about four years ago, and i would of course was the bad librarian in timbuktu which told the riveting story of how an art you fist in timbuktu managed with a very brave helper to smuggle more than three or 50000 historical manuscripts out from under miltons to safety about 600 miles away. The book was a best seller and established josh as someone and i truly believe it was a great story. And he said to begin, with his new book, the falcon thief which has another true and gripping tale of adventure. But this one about wildlife. And josh is a journalist by training and had a pretty adventurous globetrotting run himself working for newsweek over nearly two decades. He joined newsweek in the late 1980s as a Business Media writer and within a few years, he was asked to cover the rest of the world, on postings that make him in nairobi, and berlin and jerusalem, and back here in the u. S. In los angeles. Over the past decade and a half, is continue to report and travel widely. Writing for a range of publications, four years ago he won the National Magazine or and recording for my nurses are dead, and i dont know if im already affected. And that sold. [laughter]. It was still prizewinning. Until the story of a physician who led the effort to control the Ebola Outbreak there. In addition to the timbuktu book, josh has written three other works one about his younger brother who became a religious fundamentalist and another about the siege in 2002 of the Church Nativity in bethlehem. A third about the deadly 1923 earthquake and fire that struck japan. It has been said of josh, and he reports like a journalist and writes like a novelist. And that certainly the case with his work and the falcon thief in the book describes Jeffrey Lindgren in a notorious wildlife smuggler before years traveled the world stealing highly valued birds of prey and selling them to enthusiasts in the uae or falcons another rafters are used for sport. And the other essential character in joshs story, the detective from Britains National life crime unit named Andy Mcwilliams. He specializes had logical crimes, ors crime solving and was determined to catch lindgren. In the book is a fastpaced chronicle but it is more than that. It is more than just a detective story set in a rare world filled with unusual characters and astounding birds. It is as when rivera noted, cautionary tale about how the elimination or can go very long. Very wrong and what happens when precious wildlife as a status symbol, on the planet in nature is increasingly in peril ladies and gentle please welcome me and welcoming Joshua Hammer rates. Joshua thank you for that great detailed introduction. My favorite thing, i think this is will always be my favorite bookstore and favorite venue to talk about these things. Thank you everybody for coming out. I am amazed that anybody goes to book events at all. So im always surprised. Okay guys are my friends. [laughter]. But anyway, over the course of doing this particular talk now three or four times since i have got to new york, is to basically present a narrative without giving away the whole book and illustrating that narrative switches the pictures to help bring that story to life. But i will will very quickly start with an introduction about how because i assumed most of youve not seen the book, how does it basically answer the question of how i stumbled into this thing. This came out in 2016, that was a story that i had pretty much, followed for many years. Beginning as a bureau chief for newsweek, estella trips to molly and what to timbuktu i continued to visit over the years and got a couple of smithsonian assignments to write about the great manuscripts about timbuktu. So in this story when al qaeda invaded the country and people know actually got caught up in the violence and the capturing of the entire two thirds of the country. So is like a story that id owned, i felt in the way and made a certain amount of sense of the book would come out of it. This was completely different. This was totally like an act of desperation. As i was looking for another project that i have grown out of some terrible ideas including one about the 1969 meth. I dont even want to go to them but fortunately, and one day in 2017, i was in london with my kids and jason avenue bring up the london times. It was just sitting in a cafe and there was a very short article on about page 12 or so about this character name jeffrey lent, and Something Like thief on the wing again. Because the tabloids love those bad hunts and this is a story about, all is admit this guy a notorious thief known for helicopter and refilling tankless to reach rare balconies to sell to shakes and divide. And had vanished or rearrested and sent to a prison in brazil and had disappeared. Another world on the conservation world and orders run the world was alarmed that he might be coming back on the hunt. There was a sort of enough to ignite my interest and i began investigating it further and deeper in becoming obsessed with lindermans he was about his eggs. So i think this this is what writer does. Nonfiction, just plunging deeper and deeper into the subject and so without introduction, i will tell you a bit about the story as it unfolds in the book to try to give us some coherence. And without giving too much away. This story begins in a shower room at her in emirates first in Business Class lounge and Remington International airport in the uk. Were a very vigilant janitor notices a middleaged white fellow, nondescript character going into the washroom, the shower room with all of his baggage. Three bags. And disappears in their for 20 minutes. In the janitor is waiting to clean the place. He does not what know what is going on and there 20 minutes. He was very vigilant, he had a job as a security monitor. And looked at hundreds of close captioning so he was traded to observe. And after 20 minutes a guy comes out the janitor goes inside of the bathroom and shower room and he sees that nothing has been touched everything was completely dry, shower unused, tell still folded. Sink bath toilet nothing. Sylvie is immediately suspicious and start rooting around and after five or ten minutes of looking to the Ceiling Tiles whatever, and ernie tiles he finds a diaper, a temperament in the corner and he goes over to it he opens it up a sees an egg carton at the empty diaper man with a single red painted red egg by any inside of it. Any figures was left of the guy was just in there so he is completely mystified and somewhat alarmed. What could this possibly mean anything to scott probably something to do with drugs not sure what to make a long story short, the Counter Terrorism please write to the same and take them away and they stripsearched him and they find many his tshirt, in the hospital because wrapped tightly around his body and inside this hospital because our woolen socks and inside of the woolen socks are 14 of these. They dont know what they are. These Counterterrorism Police are not trained at all in understanding what they are so they asked jeffrey, by that point they knew who, they look to his passport and establish its. Irish national. One of these. And he tells them their duck eggs. And they say, okay. Would you mind telling us why you are carrying raw duck eggs attached to your body. Do you really and he explains that im a chiropractor has told him that he needs to wear a raw eggs, wrapped around his body because it will prevent him from stooping and lead to tightening of his lower back muscles. [laughter]. Okay, so at this point they do not know what they have on their hands. An attempt point, they summoned the made phone call to andy mcwilliam. If any of you have seen the reviews of this book, remember a few good ones. Some really satisfying read but they go and william. This is bad guy good guy hero. Andy was called, is the world, might call him certainly britains most famous wildlife policeman with a specialty in ornithological crimes. So heres the story and he realizes that it may, breeding season, incubating nesting season and he realizes that these eggs, probably not to hide them but to keep them warm. And from the description, he instantly knows that they are the eggs of the paragraphs. Actually had a better image of one that for some reason didnt download, and anyway, that is basically, this is a protected bird, a rafter, the fastest bird on the planet. It can go speeds above 280 miles per hour. Mcwilliam knows that they are highly prized by arab falconers in particular especially the wealthy shakes. But he is never actually heard rumors about this. This black market to bring in these protected rafters into the emirates. For these falconers and so in here he believes just from the very description, counterterrorism cops, they may have a smuggler on his hands. So mcwilliam drives down from liverpool worries from and which by the way, some of this is out of order. This matter. This is, portrait of him in 2010. This was in may of 2010. Thats what he looked like back then. So mcwilliam comes down and interviews the sky any is still lying and telling the same stories that he called the tech Counterterrorism Police and mcwilliams pretty quickly when no that is not dealing with immediate, is dealing with a wildlife expert. He knows exactly what he talking about he finally gets to admit that he was stealing, and is taking them but the eggs were dead and that in fact, the eggs were dead and he was only bringing them down to south africa for his private collection. That was the story he give them. Mcwilliam was pretty sure he was lying. He also admitted that even to, he retrieved his eggs from class in wales. This is a picture of the rhondda valley. One of his greatest concentration of terrorism and falcons in the uk and possibly the world. Is found in this former coal mining area noted for its class, really amazing landscape and these ledges are sheltered from the wind. It is have howling winds in the trees were all cut down decades even a century or more ago for coal mining to basically line this incredible network of coal mines that were built over the centuries as part of the uk. So barren landscape with these fierce winds in these little rocky ledges here protected from the winds were the arrogance lay their eggs. They dont really nest. They dont then just find these ledges maybe put a little stones or pebbles around it to protect them from rolling off. You have to imagine that this vast landscape, huge wilderness area. In ledges somehow was able to acquired 14 of these eggs. So mcwilliams is pretty sure that hes got a professional on his hands. So this is a trip that i took a couple of years later, seven years later following the footsteps of the ending mcwilliams. And then we give you a quick background sketch of mcwilliams hes a liver bit liverpool cop, working class family grandfather in world war one, father worked as a merchant marine and growth with really no options but the police. He barely finished school that became a cop a liverpool cop, walking the beach and walking and became quite well known as an investigator in sort of a midlife crisis in his 40s and decided he was tired of drug busting, drug addicts and drug pushers and suicides and murders, he wanted to get away from that. And he was also a very talented rugby player, one of the best ruggedly rugby players in england, he became a birdwatcher in the birdwatching they found he absolutely loved, led him into this kind of hidden kind of subterranean world of a black market bird trader, killers of the falcons, engine fanciers, people love trained pigeons in the kill falcons and destroy their eggs because falcons are the mortal enemy of the pigeons. So exotic bird smugglers, who actually stick burns inside of two plastic tubes and send them on 24 hour horrific journeys from thailand or the amazon to the uk to satisfy the hunger of these rare bird fanatics. And also another odd little aspect of this is egg collectors. This is a kind of very british phenomenon, Trained Spotter middleclass men, middleage men cleared. This vendor time going off to some of the remote corners of the uk islands in northern scotland, wales, ciliates of rare birds. Protected birds. Blowing out the embryos and then mounting them in collections. Their own collections which they have to keep secret and usually hide them in their attic team up there in your spare time and start their eggs. [laughter]. Mcwilliams found this whole subculture that very few people know it even existed. And he ended up pursuing these guys. Hundreds of them. Almost singlehandedly driving his involvement in an operational easter is a major crackdown on these guys and drove them out of business. So this is his background. He is wellversed in any knows almost as much about rare birds protected birds as longterm does. So i go here and this is the market that mcwilliams knew existed and that m suddenly presented a concrete image of an this is a picture taken in dubai and so often, is been around for at least 3000 years. A lot of people believe it started in the arab world. And started in the desert and the whole idea is that you take his wild birds and theres a migration over the desert and they would trap these birds and pull them out of the sky basically. And they would train them to hunt and they started out as hunters and especially help them put food on the tables. Even before the arrival of islam really. And then over the centuries, this falcon we developed trainers brought it to europe and china and from all around the world became more of a sport and recreational thing than it did a, a way to feed yourself but essentially it was the sort of interaction almost mystical interaction between man and bird was train a bird, maybe some of you ever that book, so you probably know a bit about this but this became even though it spread around the world, it did kind of guy out in the uk and europe in the states. It never really expanded have a Certain Group of people. Falconry remained intensely embedded in the culture. In a dubai desert training ground, the kind of passion the wealthiest who tend to be members of the royal family have, the Veterinary Center to shake up the crown prince of dubai, the crown prince, the sun of mohammed, the ruler of dubai who built this megalopolis. Might not be a stateoftheart hospital with a staff of veterinarians from all over the world, this, the last 20 years as the desert has gotten smaller and the national prey of the birds has disappeared in the persian gulf and the new phenomenon where the wealthy take their birds and even though their natural tendency is to drop up to 160 miles an hour they are trained using everything from many airplanes and drones to go horizontally and they gather in these racetracks, falcon racetracks and place bets, but they go all over the world to find the greatest birds to participate in these races, and up session for these guys. Three years since the 70s, you cant trade almost every rafter in the world has fallen under severe restrictions as far as the only kind of trading of these birds, only a handful are allowed every year, proving your interest is scientific. If you are not part of the scientific work you work for been from touching the birds. To feed this hunger for birds there is a captive breeding industry where they take birds and breed them in artificial environment and incubate the eggs, a huge trade worth millions of dollars. There is a Certain Group as, mostly the wealthy sheiks who believe these birds cant be compared to the wild ones because Natural Selection has bred these birds over millennia in these wilderness environment and these are the birds they want and they will go to any lengths to hire people who will provide these birds and take great risks. They only inhabit the most remote difficult to reach places in the world. One of them was jeffrey landrum. I became very curious as it Andy Mcwilliams. Mcwilliams figured quickly that he had a global smuggler on his hand and if he let him go he would escape and do this again. Mcwilliams began fixating for 36 hours to persuade a prosecutor to hold landrum for carrying bird eggs on his body, they had no clue about these arcane wildlife laws. It was down to the wire to persuade these people, and egg smuggler to hold without bail was a difficult sell but mcwilliams was able to keep him without bail while he began digging into his story as i did when i found my way, how does one become an egg smuggler . What led him to the arab world . It does raise the question of what the background would have created, this commerce he engaged in. He grew up in the second city of rhodesia. His father was a thirdgeneration white african, parents and come originally from ireland. Legend grew up within shouting distance of this National Park in Southern Rhodesia which was a magnificent geological phenomenon that has amazing rock structures which rise thousands of feet and thick vegetation that makes them perfect for rafters. This part has the greatest concentration of eagles, hawks and falcons on the planet and this was landrums backyard. He became involved with his father who was born in 61. In the 70s he became involved in a survey on ornithological survey of the black eagle which is one of the strongest eagles in the world which is found in huge concentrations, nowhere else in the world so this became landrum and his father went out to the field and surveyed and spent months, this is where landrum learned to climb trees and rappel down cliffs. This is the scene of people, the black eagle survey continues, even 50 years later, people looking at this area, they lay their eggs like the falcons do, high up, 80, 200 feet off the ground, difficult to spot their nests but this is our landrum grew up, steeped in this stuff. This is the formation you see, perfect sort of perfect terrain for these creatures to thrive. Another bird, ground eagle, one of the rarest raptors in the world and for these having giant talons but sweep small children off the ground and make off with them. On two occasions in zimbabwe that i know of. This was landrums world. At some point to sum up that story, landrum was on on of logical surveys with his father learning to climb, learning everything about birds and at the same time his father led him while he was there conducting this ontologi