Julian Rubinstein, The New Yorker Cures Terminal Ennui

Mark Thomas and Guy Shorrock track the egg vampires

Just when you think you are suffering from terminal ennui , and a great cloud of stupidity and group think has descended upon the firmament, and it is just too much effort to care about anything, the New Yorker arrives with a piece so elegant and electric, you realize there is no end to amusement, if only you know where to look.

So it is, with the vigilant stalwarts of the British Isles, ever alert to pernicious doings from stealthy stalkers skulking about-- adventure abounds tracking down terrorists bent on laying waste to vital centers in planet Earth.

"It was 4 P.M., too late to catch the last ferry, so he drove halfway to Mallaig, a tiny port town four hours away, where he could take the first boat out in the morning."

So begins Julian Rubinstein's enthralling tale of crime, dedicated police work and intercession.

"The ferry ride the next morning was choppy; clouds hung almost to the water. Everitt, a moonfaced man of forty-six, wondered what kind of day lay ahead."

What our heroes are doing in their relentless pursuit, to thwart the dastardly doings of villains, as determined and diabolical as Professor Moriarty:  these miscreants targeting Great Britain's nesting populations. These eco terrorists steal into the nests of beautiful, often endangered or rare birds, steal their eggs, puncture the eggs and suck out the contents of the egg (eco-abortionists) and scurry off with their prizes: empty shells.  These are the "egg collectors." These are the serial murderers of incubating chicks, driven by compulsions, unable to stop. When Daniel Lingham, an egg collector whose home contained 3,600 eggs, was finally apprehended, as the agents of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) splintered his door, Lingham sobbed, "Thank God, you've come. I can't stop."

Rubinstein traces the struggle back to the turn of the 21st century and beyond--egg collectors have been wrecking avian havoc since the 19th century, but only recently have their nefarious doings been outlawed.

"In the spring of 2001, the RSPB received a call from a bird watcher on South Uist, in the Outer Herbides. It is a Galelic-speaking area with severe weather, rough terrain, and a number of endangered birds, including golden eagles. About four hundred and fifty pairs of them are left in the U.K.
The birder had reported seeing a man scrambling along the side of a rock face in a hailstorm. Eagles often build their nests, or aeries, among rocks like the ones the man was scaling. An island-wide manhunt commenced. It culminated two days later, at the Howmore Hostel campground, where the suspect was found near his tent. "

The egg collectors have their own Society--this is England, after all--The Jourdain Society.  
The story winds through the infiltration of the Jourdain Society with the use of "attractive female agents" who chat up egg collectors in bars and elicit the location of secret stashes of purloined eggs and bird collector journals,  which record meetings and plans for egg abduction.

It's better than any James Bond or John LeCarre tale because IT'S ALL TRUE!

Run right out and buy this week's New Yorker. 
While you're at it, read the article on the "Beach Builders." (Speaking of eco terrorism--what we are doing to the East Coast is something to contemplate. The best part of this story is the case of a couple who refuse to allow an artificial protective dune to be built in front of their beach house, not because they have ecological reservations, but because it would ruin the view of the ocean from the ground floor of their house. As a result, the Army Corps of Engineers is nearly prevented from completing a protective dune, but it gets done, just in time to save all the homes along the dune line during Hurricane Sandy. The couple, however, persists in its law suit to remove the dune. Their view is obstructed! Neighbors be damned!)

The game's afoot! There is action, struggles between good and evil, and above all proof that not all the craziness of the world resides in the United States. Some of it does--New Jersey, Florida, all of the South, but there is craziness enough to satisfy us abroad--the U.K. a very fertile ground. Cuckoos and their eggs and their egg collectors and the Royal Society for Bird Protection.