“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 ingenuity. Drawing on reams of archival material, court documents, and exclusive interviews, Sweeney delivers a moving and amusing portrait of a woman who overcame cultural and scientific obstacles at every turn, forever changing our understanding of birds—and the feathers they leave behind. NPR Books We Love 2025 Scientific American 's Best Nonfiction of 2025 Los Angeles Times “Books to Read in July” ELLE Best Book of Summer 2025 The Millions Most Anticipated Summer 2025 BookBub Summer Must-Read New York Post Best New Book “A biography that reads like a novel . . . The book moves at a brisk and enjoyable clip, with smart writing and an affectionate, warts-and-all view of a gifted scientist and sometimes struggling human being—flawed, as are we all, but with her intellectual and investigative powers in perfect alignment with the work to be done.” — Wall Street Journal “ The Feather Detective will fascinate you . . . The New York Times once referred to Laybourne as ‘the Miss Marple of eiderdown.’ Sweeney’s simple, elegant writing makes the technicalities of Laybourne’s work easy to understand and the sexism she dealt with infuriating. . . . The Smithsonian Institution’s bird division has a hall of fame, with portraits of 34 significant staff members in its history. Guess how many women there are. Yup. Just Roxie Laybourne.” — The Minnesota Star Tribune “A timely story about the benefits of government-funded science, the invisibility of public safety's most important workers, and a fascinating—and peculiar—ecosystem: one woman, and lots and lots of birds.” — NPR “True crime meets birding in this biography. . . . A captivating tribute to Roxie’s remarkable life.” — Audubon magazine “Sweeney’s biography must be read to be believed.” — The Millions “The once-unassuming Roxie Laybourne became the world’s first forensic ornithologist in 1960. . . . In her way, Laybourne was a badass.” — Los Angeles Times , “10 books to read in August” “In journalist Chris Sweeney’s The Feather Detective , the genesis of forensic ornithology is recounted as part courtroom drama, part crime thriller. . . . Sweeney chronicles the life and times of Laybourne with a deft pen, his narrative gifts on full display in a biographical stunner of a literary paean to this eccentric, iconoclastic woman, born in 1910 in rural North Carolina, who changed world history.” — Birding magazine “An international ambassador for scie