Review by Booklist Review
Acclaimed British mystery writer Bauer, recipient of the CWA Gold Dagger in the Library Award for Outstanding Body of Work, writes a time-twisting crime adventure story set in both the early twentieth century and the present day. In the 1920s, Yorkshire climbers obtain rare, strangely colored birds' eggs by raiding the nests of guillemot birds on the seaside cliffs of Yorkshire. A century later, a few young men in Wales find an extremely rare, red egg (known as the Metland Egg) in an attic, and quickly become a target for other treasure seekers. Bauer is adept at recreating the 1920s rural poverty that encouraged the climbers to risk mortal danger seeking rare birds' eggs, but she also juxtaposes that with a contemporary desperation that makes finding the eggs so crucial to so many collectors. While the back-and-forth action is riveting, much of the background may be unclear to U.S. readers who probably are not as familiar with the actual Metland Eggs as British readers--an explanatory note would have helped.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Bauer (Exit) tugs at the heartstrings in this extraordinary literary mystery that unfolds across intersecting timelines. In 1926, young Celie Sheppard retrieves a striking red egg from a guillemot's nest near her home in Yorkshire. With rare egg collecting booming in the region, Celie's discovery rescues her family from poverty--the egg's particular hue has never been seen before, and Celie finds it on a cliff near Metland Farm that's too treacherous for full-grown men to navigate. Her mother sells the egg to pay months of back rent, and enters into a contract to sell any other eggs that Celie finds. Eventually, the broker who buys Celie's egg is murdered. Bauer alternates that narrative thread with one set in the 21st century, in which a post about one of the so-called "Metland eggs" on eBay triggers a robbery that pits brothers Patrick and Nick Fort against an international crime ring. Bauer's deep empathy--for both her human characters and for the birds whose nests are looted--elevates the immersive and unpredictable plot. It's another winner from an impressively versatile writer. Agent: Veronique Baxter, David Higham Assoc. (Apr.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A generations-spanning saga of collectible eggs and the people in their orbit. In the 1920s, on the cliffs of North Yorkshire, various gangs control the business of collecting seabird eggs, which can be quite lucrative. But at Metland Farm, it's common knowledge that the edge of the cliff is too dangerous to scale. When Celie Sheppard, fatherless misfit, and Robert, the farmhand, find a way for her to descend through a crack in the rock, she finds a guillemot nest with one perfectly red egg, and for the next 30 years, she fetches one red egg a year for a special collector, George Ambler, who pays handsomely for the rarity. In the present time, in Wales, two men break into the house of a young man, Weird Nick, and his mother, tie them up, and steal an "old egg in a fancy wooden box" that Nick bought from eBay. Nick and his friend Patrick decide to do some sleuthing and see if they can get the egg back, because it's clearly valuable. Their adventures bring them into direct contact with an egg expert, Dr. Christopher Connor; a militant member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds; and an accused egg-stealer who has sacrificed all material comforts for his collection. Bauer interweaves Celie and Ambler's story with Nick and Patrick's adventures, and it's a slow burn in the sense that it takes a while to understand both the scope of the novel and the significance of the "Metland Egg" because there's a lot of switching back and forth between time periods and characters. But once it all begins to hit, the uniqueness of the world and the charm of the characters is undeniable. There's a wistfulness, too, to the fact that in order to preserve something beautiful like this egg, the chick inside must die. As one character says, "Jeez…who knew the world of eggs was so cut-throat!" Succeeds not only in its intricately balanced plot, but also in its emotional weight. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
