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The Feather Detective: Mystery, Mayhem, and the Magnificent Life of Roxie Laybourne
Authored by Chris Sweeney
Narrated by Sierra Prasada

0:00 Intro
0:03 The Feather Detective: Mystery, Mayhem, and the Magnificent Life of Roxie Laybourne
1:19 A Note on Names and Sources
2:57 Part I: Life and Death and Feathers
12:57 Outro

#chrissweeney #thefeatherdetectivemysterymayhemandthemagnificentlifeofroxielaybourne

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BOOK DESCRIPTION

“A biography that reads like a novel.” —The Wall Street Journal • “Laybourne was a badass.” —Los Angeles Times • “Sweeney’s biography must be read to be believed.” —The Millions • “Engrossing...Riveting...This entrances.” —Publishers Weekly • NPR Books We Love 2025 • Scientific American’s Best Nonfiction of 2025

The fascinating and remarkable true story of the world’s first forensic ornithologist—Roxie Laybourne, who broke down barriers for women, solved murders, and investigated deadly airplane crashes with nothing more than a microscope and a few fragments of feathers.

In 1960, an Eastern Airlines flight had no sooner lifted from the runway at Boston Logan Airport when it struck a flock of birds and took a nosedive into the shallow waters of the Boston Harbor, killing sixty–two people. This was the golden age of commercial airflight—luxury in the skies—and safety was essential to the precarious future of air travel. So the FAA instructed the bird remains be sent to the Smithsonian Institution for examination, where they would land on the desk of the only person in the world equipped to make sense of it all.

Her name was Roxie Laybourne, a diminutive but singular woman with thick glasses, a heavy Carolina drawl, and a passion for birds. Roxie didn’t know it at the time, but that box full of dead birds marked the start of a remarkable scientific journey. She became the world’s first forensic ornithologist, investigating a range of crimes and calamites on behalf of the FBI, the US Air Force, and even NASA.

The Feather Detective takes readers deep within the vaunted backrooms of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History to tell the story of a burgeoning science and the enigmatic woman who pioneered it. While her male colleagues in taxidermy embarked on expeditions around the world and got plum promotions, Roxie stayed with her birds. Using nothing more than her microscope and bits of feathers, she helped prosecute murderers, kidnappers, and poachers. When she wasn’t testifying in court or studying evidence from capital crimes, she was helping aerospace engineers and Air Force crews as they raced to bird–proof their airplanes before disaster struck again.

In The Feather Detective, award–winning journalist Chris Sweeney charts the astonishing life and work of this overlooked pioneer. Once divorced, once widowed, and sometimes surly, Roxie shattered stereotypes and pushed boundaries. Her story is one of persistence and grit, obsession and…

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Sweeney is an award–winning journalist whose reporting has appeared in Audubon, The Guardian, Popular Science, Men’s Journal, and WIRED, among many others. He has worked as a senior editor at Boston Magazine and a staff writer at Village Voice Media’s New Times in South Florida. Sweeney was a United Nations Foundation Global Issues Press Fellow, and he has taught at Tufts University, Regis College, and Western Connecticut State University. A graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Northwestern University’s Medill School, he now lives in Somerville, Massachusetts, with his wife and two young daughters.

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AUDIOBOOK DETAILS

Purchase on Google Play Books ►► https://g.co/booksYT/AQAAAECK6BGoiM
Language: English
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published on: July 22, 2025
ISBN: 9781797191898
Duration: 9 hr, 46 min
Genres: Biography & Autobiography / Women, History / United States / 20th Century, Nature / Animals / Birds