Guillemot birds lay five-inch eggs by the hundreds of thousands on the cliff ledges along England's North Sea coast. Each egg is completely different and unique. The eggs were poached by men hanging off the cliffs in harnesses. Most of the eggs were blue or brown, and occasionally green. During the summer of 1926, a young girl was lowered down by a stronger lad and came back up with an all-red egg that a broker paid ten pounds for. The broker, George Ambler, was prepared to auction the egg, but became so enamored of it that he kept it for his own viewing pleasure. As the birds return for their entire lives and lay the exact same egg every year, Ambler committed to buying them all, and history suggests there may have been as many as 30. In 1940, Ambler either fell off Metland Cliff or was helped off; either way, no one mourned him. His staff sold the eggs, kept one, and quickly forgot him.
A century later, the surviving red egg is sitting in an attic and is robbed almost immediately after Nick puts it up on eBay. Nick and his buddy Patrick, an autistic medical student, begin to search for the stolen egg. They have only a vague understanding of its history. They narrow in on a museum director who is a world authority on birds' eggs. With some deft maneuvering, they find not only the egg, but the other 29 as well, which they joyfully liberate in order to put a century of greed to rest.
This is a very different, yet intriguing read. And yes, there were 30 red Metland eggs, although no one knows what happened to them.
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