Description
Late on a cold December afternoon, twenty-eight year old Victoria Ruthven takes refuge against the rain and darkness in the bird gallery of London’s Natural History Museam.
Since childhood the quiet, vaulted gallery has been her sanctuary. it houses the ornithological collection of her grandfather, the legendary soldier, explorer, and naturalist Colonel Jack Ruthven. The only successful male in a family where the men have invariably been failures, Victoria has always seen him as a hero, a beacon star. Today, with a broken love affair behind her, she needs his comfort and presence more than ever.
In the gallery, a young staff zoologist tells her Ruthven’s collection is about to be revealed as a massive fraud. Many of Ruthven’s so-called birds never existed in nature. Others could not have lived where he claimed to have collected them. The man was a liar, a rogue, a deceiver on a vast scale. Shocked and distraught, Victoria sets out to discover the truth.
