The Feather Detective: Mystery, Mayhem, and the Magnificent Life of Roxie Laybourne

Journalist Sweeney debuts with an engrossing chronicle of how Roxie Laybourne (1910–2003) pioneered the field of forensic ornithology. Laybourne was an avian taxidermist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History when the newly created Federal Aviation Administration approached her in 1960 for assistance identifying the shredded feathers found amid the wreckage of a fatal airline crash in Boston Harbor. The agency soon came to rely on her insights to make airfields unappealing homes for the species that most frequently collided with aircraft. Her expertise also put her in demand at other federal agencies. For instance, Sweeney details how Laybourne shored up the FBI’s 1971 case against white supremacists who tarred and feathered a Detroit civil rights activist by finding that the feathers matched those from the suspects’ homes, and how she assisted the Fish and Wildlife Agency in sorting through the remains of over 100 hawks, vultures, and owls uncovered in the late ’80s at the estate of media tycoon John Kluge, whose gamekeeper was found guilty of poaching and fined $10,000. The riveting accounts of Laybourne’s biggest cases read like an avian riff on CSI, and Sweeney’s finely observed portrait of Laybourne presents her as a no-nonsense ornithologist who navigated the politics of the lab and the courtroom with equal aplomb. This entrances. Agent: Susan Canavan, Waxman Literary. (July)