I loved this! I remember enjoying Belinda Bauer’s first two books, Blacklands and Darkside, around the time they were published in 2009 and 2011 respectively, but I seemed to lose track of her work after that. When this one caught my eye, I decided to give it a try and I’m very pleased that I did. The plot is completely different from any other crime novel I’ve read.
The Impossible Thing is a novel set in two different periods almost one hundred years apart and linked by the same crime – the theft and illegal trading of wild birds’ eggs. In 1926, gangs of ‘egg-climmers’ gather on the Yorkshire coast and lower each other from ropes over the cliffs to steal eggs from the seabirds nesting there. Traders and collectors are willing to hand over large sums of money for the most rare and beautiful eggs, so when little Celie Sheppard from Metland Farm makes the dangerous descent through a crack in a ledge of rock and obtains a perfect red guillemot egg, it creates a sensation.
In the present day, in rural Wales, Patrick Fort decides to visit his friend, Nick, and arrives just in time to discover that both Nick and his mother have been tied up and robbed. The only thing stolen is an old wooden box containing a red egg. Nick had found the egg in the attic and put it on eBay, only for it to be taken down almost immediately for breaching eBay’s policy on selling illegal items. It seems that, even in the short space of time it was advertised, someone saw it, tracked it down to Nick’s address and decided they must have it no matter what. Although Nick had no idea that owning birds’ eggs was illegal, he is afraid to admit to the police that he had one, so he and Patrick set out to find the thief themselves.
This is definitely the first book I’ve read about egg trafficking! It’s an unusual subject for a crime novel, but Bauer builds a story around it that I found completely fascinating and unexpectedly exciting. I assumed that everything in the book was fictional, so I was interested to learn that the red Metland Egg really existed – or to be more accurate, Metland Eggs, as one was collected every year for over twenty years from the same location on the Bempton Cliffs near Bridlington. Something I learned from the novel is that female guillemots lay only one egg a year and if it is stolen, they will return to the same spot the following year to lay an almost identical egg. It made me feel sad to think of the bird that laid the red eggs never actually getting to see one hatch and I’m so glad that the Protection of Birds Act 1954 made egg theft illegal in the UK – even though it hasn’t stopped it completely, it’s a big step in the right direction.
Patrick Fort, the main character in the present day sections of the novel, was apparently introduced in a previous Belinda Bauer novel, Rubbernecker, which I haven’t read. I can see why she decided to bring him back for a second book, because he’s a very engaging, intelligent and likeable character. Patrick has a form of autism which affects his social interactions, but he has a good friend in Nick, who understands why he sometimes behaves the way he does. I loved seeing them work together to hunt down the egg thieves and I must go back and read about their earlier adventures in Rubbernecker!
The historical sections are also very well done and the scenes where young Celie Sheppard is dangled over the cliff in search of the eggs are very dramatic; I can’t imagine how dangerous and terrifying that would be, yet Celie did it year after year from such an early age. At least she was rewarded financially for her efforts, at a time of poverty when her family desperately needed the money. It was interesting to see how big and well organised the egg trafficking industry was in those days, with collectors and traders prepared to go to great lengths – and great expense – to obtain the rarest and most unusual eggs.
I picked a great book for my return to Belinda Bauer after such a long time and am looking forward to reading the others that I’ve missed.
Thanks to Bantam for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.
She Reads Novels 
I haven’t read anything by Belinda Bauer before but she sounds like the kind of off centre author I would like. DJ Taylor wrote a really enjoyable historical novel set in the Victorian period called Kept, about egg stealing in the Scottish highlands, which is worth looking out.
Oh… ‘Kept’ was a MOST interesting & entertaining read. My review is here:
https://cyberkittenspot.blogspot.com/2021/02/just-finished-reading-kept-victorian.html
Kept sounds interesting – thanks! I found Belinda Bauer’s earlier books to be more conventional crime novels, but this one is very unusual. I’m curious to see what the others are like that I’ve missed.
Interesting topic!
Yes, I thought so!
What an intriguing idea….!
Definitely not the usual sort of crime novel!
This sounds very interesting! I read a book of hers called Rubbernecker a few years ago, which was a little dark for me but well done.
I think Arthur Ransome’s Coot Club involved the children trying to protect nests from perhaps-illegal collectors and Ann Cleeves’ Vera Stanhope often recalls her father’s illegal bird-related activities (which she participated in as a child or adolescent, yearning for his approval).
Apparently Rubbernecker introduces some of the characters who are in this book, but this one still works as a standalone. I’m not sure whether I ever read Coot Club – I definitely read some of the Swallows and Amazons books, but I can’t remember which ones!
I think Bauer was involved in one of those projects in which she either rewrites a classic novel or writes a new one in the series. I’m fuzzy on that. I read Rubbernecker, but it was so long ago that I don’t remember Patrick (or the plot, for that matter), but this one sounds interesting. I’ll put it on my list.
Patrick might just be a minor character in Rubbernecker – I’m not sure, but I would like to read it, along with the others I haven’t read.
Oh, no, I think he’s the main character. At least that’s what it seems like from my review.
Oh, I might have been thinking about Sophie Hannah when I said that about the series.
Egg trafficking just makes me think of the Look and Read programme I saw at school about the subject – it must have been pretty ancient as it was old at the time and this was in the 1990s! I’ve not read any Bauer. I consistently mix her up with Bella Bathurst for some reason.
I haven’t thought about Look and Read for years! We used to watch it at school as well, but I can’t remember seeing the egg trafficking one.
Looks like it might have been bird rather than egg trafficking – I was thinking of Sky Hunter.
Hello Helen, I am pleased to hear you enjoyed your return to this author so much. 😊 It sounds like a really interesting premise, but I think it would make me too sad – I am a very sensitive soul! 😅
Blessings, Jessica 💌
It was quite sad. I’m glad bird egg collecting has been banned now (even if it still happens sometimes). I can understand why you might not want to read about it!
Rubbernecker was the first of her books that I read, and I loved it. I’ve read quite a lot of them since then and in recent times I’ve felt she’s gone off the boil a bit. So I’m delighted to hear that she’s on top form in this one. I’ve been holding back on deciding whether to get it until I’d seen some reviews, but I’ll now go ahead with confidence and stick it on my list!
I’m looking forward to reading Rubbernecker and meeting Patrick again. Sorry to hear her other books since then haven’t been as good. I really enjoyed this one, but it’s not really a conventional crime novel and probably won’t appeal to everyone. I hope you like it!