her last name but she said something and they kind of outcasted her but now you saw a lot of different saying that happened to me too, as well i saw somebody, you know, that just is happened to. and then they got him everything started moving but i thought that was a great model to show especially young female athletes a lot of times people they don't feel empowered. you know, so to show the power they have is collectively so -- >> when they feel empower they are held to different standards and serena is our case and point. >> that's true thank you all. thank you very much. all of you. appreciate it. thank you -- [applause] thank you. you're watching booktv on c-span2 for complete television schedule, visit booktv.org you can also follow along behind

scenes on social media at booktv on twitter instagrandmother and facebook. next up from the boston book festival is an author discussion on crime in america. good afternoon. i serve on board of the boston book festival. thank you for coming out on a rainy day for what is an annual traditional beloved to the qmv i want to thank you for being here one to support the festival in person and to reminding you that we are a free event and rely on your participation and giving to keep this event free for the community. if you are having a wonderful time and i know you are, please do look in your book program and it makes gift if you would like to become a member visit us at our members tent and if you feel very motivated and i hope you do, you can make commitment of 150 dollars to get a lovely tote

bag commemorating our 10th anniversary with lovely swag inside it. people always ask why i'm involved with the book festival and i think it's because i'm very committed to notion of access democracy and power of ideas. so many of us it's not only a passion project but sometimes the verge is on obsession, and books give us that opportunity to explore those notions. today session is one such extraordinary moment and i'm dlielgted to turn it over to springer for session introductions. thank you, again. [applause] thank you. >> thank you all for coming out again on such a rainy cold day. i will start with panelist introductions. we'll go right to left and my right to left. we have peter he's the author of -- [inaudible conversations] a test get that out. the rise and fall of a forger extraordinary over a decades

long career as an author and journalist he's written about everything from wine fraud to true crime to the holocaust quite a range there. and then next to him we have kirk wallace johnson he's the author of the seats beauty obsession and natural history heist of the century a journalist former refugee worker founded wrist project to reare settle iraqi allies as part of his continued work with refugees. and we have phage williams, she's author of the dinosaur artist, obsession betrayal and quest for earth ultimate trophy she's a staff writer at the new yorker, she was a fellow at harvard, and she currently teaches journalism at columbia university. last three panelists. so also i want to say that at the end i'll leave 15 minutes for audience is. we have a microphone in the center aisle that you can come to ask panelists questions. and then the authors will all be

signing their book after this session at the back of the church. we'll start with sort of an obvious question here which is -- how did you discover your strange but true crimes? and beyond that, how did you know when you did discover them that they have the makingings of a book there was there to last 3, 400 pages start with peter. >> i'll try to tell a dramatic moment in my journalism career which goes back 50 years since i was on the us accident is northampton cc1 massachusetts city. and married a girl from northampton i didn't know that yet. [laughter] april 25th, 2008, friday, 4:30 nasty day -- i get a call from a high end wine dealer. you should go down to the marle and auction that's crew restaurant that starts in an hour and a half.

i said why? and he said, 22 lots of a very rare and sought-after red burgundy wine close one of the 32 greatest wines of burgundy are going to be withdrawn from the auction at the insistence of the fourth generation proprietor who is flying in to make sure the defines are withdrawn because he knows they are counterfeit. and so lazy as a i am i knew i better get down there so i took my shower and went down it auction at that time crew was the greatest wine the greatest wine list of any in new york many bottling easing 10,000 in price and at the auction sure enough, 22 lots were withdrawn, mid-way through the auction. at the end -- and everybody knew that there was, that at that time biggest wine dealer in the world probably rudy had consigned

these wines. i asked wine director which is here he's that little foal low over there in the corner. and i went over, and i never met rudy and normally identify myself as a journalist. but at this time i decided i won't let him think i'm a collector. hey rudy he's looking at me like do i know this guy? and i said rudy, what happened with those 22 lots of domain, and i see he's speaking for an answer and finally he said, well -- we try our best but it's burgundy and shit happens. i ran off to a corner and wrote that down in my catalog and that was the last thing he ever said about those 22 lots. and now i'll -- pass the buck here. [laughter] >> only add to that. wants to know more -- >> well eight years later i was still writing if rudy and he still was not saying anything. actually he couldn't because by then he was on a ten year

sentence in a frizz i believe i'm only person in this room and in new york ever been to taft, california where there's a prison and it is really out there in the boonies and that's where he is. >> will remain for years more. now -- right? >> he will on january 3rd, 2020, one he'll be released there will be two i.c.e. agents on side of the door to take an article each one arm and put him on first flight back to jakarta his hometown. >> atmosphere when your curiosity was sparked in middle of a river -- >> i can't believe you swore in a church but that's -- off podium good move. good move. would never say it myself. >> yeah, my encounter with this story happened in -- november of 2011.

and i was waist high in a river in northern new mexico the red river which feeds into the rio grand and i was fly fishing for trout. and i was at a point in my life where i was -- feeling somewhat trapped because i spent the better part of a decade -- fighting the u.s. government on behalf of the iraqis who are being hunted because they work for us during the war and they're flowning for their lives and we're trying to get them out and i found that only -- way to get them from pressures was through fly fishing. trout tend to live in most beautiful parts of the country. they don't life where there are cell signals and only thing that matters is how deliberate and quiet and patience you are to what's happening around you. and i had hired a guide that day to teach me the ins and outs of this it river. and he -- when he was tieing a fly on to my line, i caught this flash this really brightly coloredded thing i had never seen before

and it was a -- a victorian salmon fly with a dozen species of brightly colored feathers tied in this intricate pattern he started telling me about this, art form that is per cysted over last 150 years and he said was he think that strange you should hear about this kid named edwin wrist a 20-year-old american that had just spoken into the british museum of history to steal hundreds of xot pick bird skins gateddered over hundreds of years some by wallace himself a contemporary are darwin, and he saw a million dollars of birds in order to pluck the feathers to sell to this underground community of victorian salmon tie flyers -- and made hundred was thousands of dollars some of which he was done this to buy a golden flute because he's a professional floutist. and so i -- i had this that he was caught but that --

half of the birds were never recovered and so i'm standing in middle this have river and i thought this was the craziest sentence i've ever heard. [laughter] it is and really that kind of -- that kind of grabbed hold of me and as soon as i started digging arranged i started getting threats from these guys who didn't want me poking arranged and by the end this -- story emerged that has, i mean, there are cocaine addicted in this story that are selling off birds to feed their habit. there are end times cult believers that are -- that have some of the missing birds that refuse to give them back. i mean it's a pretty wild story. but it all sort of was born on the river that morning so -- >> perfect birthplace i would say. [laughter] do i seem loud to you or is that

me in my ear i'm a family because my family you have to yell to be heard so if you -- >> a voice -- of a southern accent if i blow your eardrums out -- >> ins mississippi. yeah, mississippi, and that connects to the story in some ways because growing up in i grew up in northern part of the state where we didn't have are natural history museums we didn't talk about -- evolution. we didn't talk about the deep earth's deep past, and so this is all a new world to me so i don't remember the hour, date, or i remember the year of the spark of inspiration for this story and it was 2009 and the summer and i was reading my hometown paper and came across a news brief about a dinosaur thief in montana and he was about to be sentenced to prison. for having taken stolen dinosaur bones off of federal property and in montana i think. and i couldn't understand --

what that was. and who would do such a thing and -- why anyone would steal bones as any kind beyond the what we understand about medical graverobbers of the past. and that led to many years of many rabbit holes looking for the right case to follow. that case didn't turn out to be the right one by i wanted a good taste with lots of depth and sort of different threads and i could follow. and a in the spring of 2012 this case came up unprecedented federal case involving a turned into unprecedented federal case involving this guy eric in florida a 38-year-old -- bone hunter married father of two who raised his family and who supported his family by

seeking out the remains of ice age mega that exist in florida to different areas rich in different kinds of fossils and he lived in a state that is overrun with water and that harbors, lots of huge, weird gorges were so he taught himself how to dive and taught himself how to restore prehistoric remains he thought himself how to weld he studied scientific papers, and studied scientific mounts and museums to understand how to reconstruct these creatures. and eventually i think i can say this was without giving spoilers baa he got into a fix. he needed a bigger payout which meant moving into a bigger animal. and got hooked up with a guy who began supplying him with a desert dinosaur from mongolia, and that's what led to the sukim

talking about threads and whether a single story can support a book linked work, the initial story appeared in the new yorker and in january of 2013. and it wasn't until the summer of 2014 that i actually realized that there was a book there, and it took i didn't develop it over that yearn i forgot about it because i was interested in other things. but when he was sentenced to prison, it was also somewhat unpress deputied first international case where -- a smuggler had been, has been imprisoned for his case taking a large predator to asian cousin of t-rex to auction in new york city as you do. and -- sold it over a million dollars and about fine art auction century and raise questions about who owns earth and who gets to hunt for fossil and interact with them and own them

and sell them, and it raised lots of questions about the black market, and dinosaur bones and in particular -- that is a global well for the five major countries where there are rich in dinosaur bone it is raise questions about how those get trafficked out and how those get smuggled out of some countries so into ours to be sold at auction and in trade shows. so there's like auction thread there's the history thread, there's all kinds of threads here that felt to me deep enough to explore and in a work. >> i want to get to some of the threads i think connects all three of the books that you have these quirky amazing wild central characters or characters at the center of the crimes. you have mentioned rudy you have edwin and you have eric procopy. and i wanted to know what was it like gettings inside the minds of those characters because you kind of have to do that had.

what did you learn about human nature and more specifically the nature of obsession because to me, all three of them were in their own way motivated by on session. we can, we can go backwards forwards you want to start request that. it is quite a -- you know interesting guy champion summer and he was -- he went to -- attended university of florida and -- left florida with a double major in engineering which is no small accomplishment he's really smart guy. but all he wanted it to do was what he calls treasure hunt. he wanted only to find things and to be known for having found porpt things and bringing them to the public. the public view, and, of course, selling them he was interested in making a living. and in materials of how to get inside the mind, that was hard because he -- is not a talker. he is -- for those of you who read book somebody called him a dial tone the other day on twitter. [laughter]

poor guy he's very reserved and he doesn't -- in journalism i think we all know there are prolific talkers who will just talk you -- into the ground. and a wonderful way of describing in book i think something like his voice would catch -- yeah. one of the good memory. he tends to take long pauses in the middle of sentences and that tends to make -- i'm a very impatient person so it was hard to sit and wait and listen, and encourage and -- not talk over him. and so it was hard getting inside his mind and it only it took years this book took years to do and part of it was because i was determined not to go forward until i was able to inside a little bit because i don't think it is fair to take superficial version of that. i really wanted to know what journalism and why -- i'm interested in why criminals do things that they do. and how it affects the family and their communities, and

whatever world they're operating in be it bone market or feathers or wine or whatever so that was hard i forget your second. >> nature of obsession. nature of obsession because you know there was obvious obsession with fossil every hunter that i talked to and there were many all told me once you find your first fossil that you, your life is literally changed. that you can't stop looking for them. that you want to find more of them. usually you want to find more of the same kind of what you're on seasessed with. but some people cross other and they start with, you know, for copy case he started with shark teeth and then a florida and he wound up with dinosaurs from the desert of mongolia so up the -- didn't go up food chain but up chain in terms of land -- size, and time period. >> i feel like --

it was a challenge at the beginning i feel like i -- everyonety and edwin was studying at the royal academy of music in london it was one of the most prestigious institutions in the world. and it was bright and gifted young man what would possess him to spend better part of a year planning this heist which culminated in him he finished a concert in london that evening. performing high and board a train up to this -- this little town about 40 minutes out of london. and he had an empty suitcase a diamond braid glass cutter latex gloves he stolen from his doctor during a routine checkup. [laughter] and wire cutters and led

flashlight, and he scaled this 7 foot wall snipped the barbed wire strands away, tried to carve through the window but it was harder to cut through glass than he anticipate sod he looked around to make sure guards weren't there and bashed it out with a rock and then -- climbed into the british museum of natural history. and and what they as a catastrophic set from humanity that we understand not only evolution through natural selection by the study of the specimens but -- these things have yielded answers for centuries we understand the impact of ddt pesticides by studying collections we with understand that mercury levels are rising in ocean because we have these collections. so -- how do you get into the mind of somebody who could justify this? in this case he had been one of these, he was a master chairman at a very young age he was kind

of in this community through these forums online. he was always longing for feathers he couldn't afford because this was one in the book in the book describes it as historical fetishism to tie the same looking things with just diet feathers but only the best tie with the authentic feathers from the 19th century and from species that are in many cases endangered or illegal to own. when i heard about this story, i -- i sent him an interview request he denied i spent next four years trying to get him to agree to talk and he finally did and gotten married and i thought it would be fun if my waif came with me and she was working recordings equipment but -- the day before the interview i realized will i know all about

his crime and his had background but i don't know what kind of person he is and you know, might have i just walked my wife into some unstable situation so -- i hired a 6'4" body guard this german guy who stood up in a track suit and he was hiding in the hallway. the entire interview like ready to pounce if edwin tried to do anything. but there was wasted money. and this i think in this case, over the course of a single eight hour interview, what really emerged was someone who is obsession had completely warped their moral compass into having is really for everything he felt like he didn't steal from an individual. he stole from an institution he felt that the museum if there were really using these things

for science and to protect birds then why are all of the birds species dying off throughout the world they better do their job and must not be doing a good enough job -- everything he had a million justifications but ultimately was that he appreciated specimens that are then -- the scientist could and that's really what was still kind of in the end what was so outrageous to me these specimens hold answers to questions that scientists haven't thought of yet. they've been spared from bombings from zeppelin and world 11 e evacuated and they survived hitler and they ended up being stolen from a tire so -- any rate -- so golden flu -- it is ultimate player i tend fly with that. [laughter] >> there's rudy -- [laughter] >> so where i stopped i'll

continue and say, it's interesting in 2008 there was extraordinary bind of old wine people who had too much money in their pocket and money and bought their condo overlooking south beach and bought their maserati everything that you fancy watch and then they say what else can i buy? and then they think what could i buy that would really elevate me into some exclusive priesthood? and that io i deally is old wine from vintage 1945 in burgundy 19, 1928 and 1898 and back were before global warming. and france when often grapes never ripened but in the special years, 45 especially just after the war, great wines were made in bordeaux and burgundy over

france and one they didn't have chemicals to fatten up grapes in those days they just didn't have it so grapes were small. they have thick skins. where the flavor was more than in the juice of the wine, and it made for very intense, long lasting wine. okay let me jump are to how -- how did the fourth generation proprietor domain know for sure that this wine was counterfeit? there were -- 11 lots of wine -- one of the 32 greatest. and they were in vintages offered 1945 through 1971, and he knew that his father never had access to close until 1982 opened a shot these wines could not exist with a label that said domain ponso before this people were looking at labels wine, oh

key in st. peters hand it doesn't look like it is quite printed right but nobody knew for sure and the key reason why wine is the ideal -- treasurable object to counterfeit unlike rolex, unlike almost any luxury good you could think of -- chanel handbag, the product is enclosed in the bolts. you cannot know for sure if it is real or fake until you unseal that bottle pull the cork pour the wine taste it, and frankfully even when you do that, does anybody really know what the 1945 chateau is like maybe about this many people in the world have had it more than a few times even then -- wine becomes what you want it to

be. it is a very seductive product people around the table they're happy. they pull the cork. they have great expectations. it becomes what you want it to be. but jump back to rudy and that day after i talked to him. i was then writing for once spectator i called editor the wine spectator i said hey mitch crazy thing happened at this auction last night this auction they withdrew these 22 lots of domain -- okay. write a story he said. i where a story. the day after it came out -- i got a call from the editor wine spectator. marvin wants to see you at 4:00 that's marvin the proprietor of wine spectator publications i can't come at four. tom, i could have by i somehow i didn't want to jump to that. jump to that thing. so i came 5:30, i think. and we went and smoke cigar

barely see him through cigar smoke so happy had because -- more hits that come on that story than any story in the history of define spectator. just you know just happened i didn't know what was going on, and that was as a i say late april, 2008, i wrote about about rudy for eight years. and i never thought about writing a book but then a young, a young sharp editor at then wine spectator now she's the wine critic for the san francisco chronicle that peter you should write a book about -- the rudy story i said no. done all of this journalism all of these years. an enough -- and she said well that's journalism this is a book. it's different i needed 24-year-old woman to tell me this, you know i had done six or seven books and then i began to think about it and so -- i -- i came to conclusion yep. let me start writing this book and i didn't tell anybody for a long time when it was about 80%

done i called a -- well i called my -- my agent my former agent. i said linda i would like you to read this manuscript to jump off the page for some editor well i'll read one chapter she she sd and sending me one chapter and outline rest and how you're going to promote it on social media. i said linda will you read whole thing just really i would like to get your opinion. no one chapter, outline the rest. social media -- she was very nice to get a agent if i wanted it and we parted ways then and luckily a small feisty publisher took on book and read whole manuscript such as it was, and so it became a book. at that point -- you mentioned rudy and also how easy it is to commit wine fraud. are you surprised at his audacity in scope what have he did. he was traveling in very high

circles the crème de la creme of wine connoisseur and fooled them all over a number of years and curious with what insight you had into rudd didy as you reseah over eight years. >> who was rudy now if you think about a top end wine counterfilter a englishman or even an american. rudy came to u.s. oz student visa went to cal state north ridge and indonesia never touch wine until a birthday dinner for his father at san francisco probably in 2,000 maybe 1989 he knew nothing about wine. but he orders most expensive wine on list, so called california cabernet. probably at that time on the i would guess 250 dollars now it would be more, and this wine just flipped a sensory switch in

rudy's brain and he went nuts and greatest thing that ever happened to him. the next day he began to buy every single bottle on the run are to find in the los angeles area. and then he went on to other cold cabernet as they're called from cabernet as we went to australian big white wines and from there he went to bordeaux more suggests wine and most subtle most complex and most intricate groups of wine of burgundy turned out rudy had perfect pitch with wine. he remembered every wine he ever tasted. and he tasted with top level people and he to answer your question whafsz he doing at the time of this birthday dinner? he was working part-time in a golf pro shop doing nothing, and suddenly he was buying all of this wine he was bringing to

tasting. and he's wealthy older -- americans say wow rudy bought a bottle of wine and always brought magnum double big siz bottle one for thousands of dollars buying them like online where did money come from that's another story the key term is money landering. [laughter] but you know when you bring great wines you get indicted he went from being part-time worker in a golf shop to getting invited to taste is a billionaire -- bought his wine one of the koch brothers just masters of industry at the age of 26 -- he was selling wine to the founding chairman of the petco that chain. went to rudy wow i bought 1.6 million from wine in the last six months i'm glad i didn't

know you earlyier if i would have my wife would have shot me. had he did it in a american or frenchman or englishman. he wouldn't have gotten away with it but he has about him very young -- nobody could figure him out. said thing in your last answer you talked about being a catastrophic some perceived it at a catastrophic theft. and feathers you know nobody was murdered what i want to know is where you came down on that side of the debate and i say this knowing that you actually made it your personal mission. some of the missing bird skin and feathers to recoup train

museum losses. >> yeah. so there is a -- they think they're just sitting in dusty old boxes in some museum basement and they've, i mean, feather seat himself told me after 100 years, you can't extract dna from them anymore which scientists just pulled dna412 million-year-old dna from some buffalo hide they found around great lakes. but no there were two very is clear camps and i did not even i couldn't even come close to maintaining neutrality when it came to this investigation. it was very clear to me that -- destroying skins for an art form

and this is something that -- mentioning but no idea to fish they don't own any fishing gear and salmon are essentially colorblind when they're spawning and not feeding anymore so you're catch salmon when they're striking out of aggression you can catch them with dog fur tied to a hook there's no reason that a salmon in scott is land should be atrangted to a king bird of paradise from highlands of new guinea both two speeds never going to meet. and so there's a kind of -- whole thing that i as much as i try to like -- you know, give them benefit of the doubt it was difficult because more i dug into this i realize this wasn't an isolated crime i thought separate natural museum heist now that i've uncovered over course of this investigation and since book has had cool out i did a lot of events at natural history

museums one of which had i did launch at the l.a. natural history museum and at the walk through before the event that -- took me aside and he goes kirk i have to show you something and he -- took me to this case and at the bottom of case where somebody had pried it open and stolen this same species that were from the british museum. to me i felt like there was something really profoundly hopeful and beautiful in what the museum curators are doing and what they represent this century's old chain of custodians of the earth's past. also some of the birds stole incline this heist. when he got back from this 8-year are expedition to the area he described the importance of maintaining this collection saying that each one of these

specimens represents a letter that make up the words of the volume of the earth deep history that if we allow ourselfves to lose them you can never go back and get another bird from that island from 1860 anymore. and so -- there was something a stark choice when i was faced with people who are doing this because they believed that human and human knowledge will present new ways of interrogating new specimen versus a kid who sliced into them because a pair of a single pair of feathers from a endangered species now go for 100 dollars. and he stole 49 of those skins with thousands of feathers on them each. so really like it became a personal mission to go to try to track things down because i felt like they department belong to those guys they belong to museum so i don't know if that answered

your question. >> did. with you paige there's questions an you raised them before about what are these dinosaur fossil belong to me one of the fascinating statistics in your book was how many of those fossils are discovered by amateurs not by professional scientists and pailtologists so where did you come down on that? who do they belong to is it for fossil hunters like eric to sell them to hollywood stars? or is it do they belong in educational institutions in museums and are they natural, treasure ares to a place like mongolia. >> answer is both. i want to back up to something kirk was saying same is true of fossils the only way of studying deep time. they're only way that signs snow and any of us know -- knows about the life forms that existed millions and millions hundreds millions of years ago and billions of years ago.

so when they -- when collectors complain that these items are just stuck in dusty collection and in drawers and not being used by anyone therefore, they should be sold enjoyed by collectorrers that's simply not true. a lot of science has been advanced based on items in collection like you're talking about the dna, we know about that because someone discovered an old bird fossil in a collection somewhere. so -- curators they have a vital role in this, in natural history museums and in -- intersection between science and the publics understanding of science. in terms of who owns these things, it -- it very much depends on the law in a lot of place. so in the united states if you are into fossils and if you want to hunt for things, if you find

something on your land or property where you have permission to hunt, and to collect, then it's yours you can do anything you want with it united states is very unique in that way and other species is a dinosaur rich place, so that's to the hunters that's a good thing to scientists not so much they would rather that not be the case in other countries as we know from the book, mongolia bans any sort of bone collecting, and any sort of fossil tray so it depends where you are in the world whether it's yours to collect or not. and u.s. i should say that on federal land it is illegal to collect any of these things. personal feelings, though. gosh we're on a little bit different i think maybe is that -- i wanted very much to not reveal personal feelings that i think of it it is not my business as

journalist to come down on either side even though it is easy to feel enrage and rightly so by -- any sort of poacher and any sort of person who for whatever reason decides to have the law. so i won't -- the law as my feeling and don't destroy, you know, scientific objects and you know when you take a fossil out of the ground you and scientist removed them they extract them from the earth along with data that ten tell us about the history of that place on earth and what kind of life form lived there and what kind of trees surrounded them and what kind of water they lived it near. so when you talk a fossil and if you yank a fossil out of the ground a dinosaur, whatever, and stick it in a correction or in a museum, you don't know anything about that animal or that life -- time the lifetime of that

animal. so when you lose the data you lose the story. story is the data. so -- there are a lot of people who believe these are art octobers that they could be interesting to own and to -- talk about as a novelty but they tell a story of a history on life and importance for that reason. >> bump we turn to audience questions i'll ask the panel one more, and that's just about the process, i mean, for all of you this was incredibly lengthy eight years. four years for more than four years, six years almost 10. almost ten years so lengthy research process. and books are are jam-packed with just a wealth of historical knowledge and knowledge about insular worlds whether it is wine, feathers collecting and flag time or dinosaur fossil hunting. how did you even begin to kind

of wrap your arm around that part of the research and at time when is it was so overwhelming the process of those research and then writing and organizing it. going down -- [laughter] who wants to paige yeah you were excited about -- >> i could talk about process and crafts all day long i'll how much time do we have? i would say it never stopped feeling overwhelming because with every new -- sort of revelation it took me into a different area that needed to be explored and that's just me i'm obsessive with fact these guys are obsessed with their own thing i'm a knowledge obsessive and i love learning about these different areas that's the beauty of reporting beauty of being a journalist a big part of it. and organizationally a lot of years of trial and error on how to corral the material and figure out the thread and figure out or structure and figure out

pacing which, you know, i don't you never know if you quite get it right. i think. but there was so -- you know in this case this spanned plane ya, the the story spans continent and it spans life form and culture, cultures definitely. because mongolia is a huge character in this book and it is a relationship geopolitically to the united states is kind of its own thing in in book because if you know mongolia situated between russia and china, and is a good friend to north korea so there's a reason for the united states government got involved in a weird dinosaur case and that was important to me as a journalist to sort of figure that out, and to figure out state department role in -- bringing that case and suggesting that that case be brought forward. but i know a lot of trial enerror a lot of file and hoarding that turned out to not

be so good for your home life. and remove all of that stuff into a storage unit now so at least it is out of my line of sight. but years qort of i don't know document reports, you know, every kind of document you can get so you know what's out there and i don't know, i started time line on this because i needed to know literally it starts 4.6 billion years ago when earth formed and because i needed to know exactly how this -- you know, exactly the context it gave rise to the story. and i think that timeline bit end was like 900 pages long itself and then transcripts were 600 interview 600 some pages so that alone becomes an overwhelming amount of -- material to have to keep track of in your mind and go yeah this reminds me of this, in fact, when you were talking about natural history museum in london

all i could think about is sir richard owen who coined word dinosaur in 1842 he's reason that museum exists. he lobbied britain for it own stand alone natural history museum one of the glueriest places on earth but it stangdz alone from british miewmedz and is its own thing and its own target in that way in your way. >> yeah. for me this was eruption of the story, the minute i started ig ig -- i started digging around i was back in the victorian era. i had these wild cast of -- contemporary characters and it was too much to corral. the answer is there's a lot of failing there would be these

things that my agent katherine are sheer but i was obsessed with one one story about a -- 19 century set up a penguin operation on remote island and borrowed millions of penguins to death for their oil. i was trying to make this case this needs to be in the bock and politely said maybe that's the magazine piece or something. [laughter] and so that dpght make it in. but you can do what i did and just -- sneak all of that material into the notes. yeah. [laughter] you know. topped get dinged on nor that. but whatever. >> i probably should have. but no this was -- i don't know how many revisions a year and a half just revisions i also had a timeline that was --

finally led me to be able to tackle detail plotting of the heist who bought what from him when and where i had gaps that had to fill in and -- but ultimately it was just like a -- a mountain of chaotic criminal activity that i had to try to find the throughline through. but -- >> before i want to reenforce a microphone in center aisle after peter tells us that his research project please come forward and -- ask the panel your own questions but peter you're eight-year research project. i have to say a danger in my case extreme danger was -- rudy -- made fools of very big deal billionaires in this country. and in fact, he was finally tried thanks to a u.s. attorney in new york southern district

loved wine and convince bra aree said we have big time drug dealers we have terrorism, we have wall street shenanigans if they want to spend money on fake wine and they can't figure out whether it is real or not we're not going to spend public money on that. that's a good case. but this young, assistant u.s. attorney jason hernandez second generation cuban american went crazy about define. while he was a debater in college university of michigan. did take on this disand hard to prove it pane going endlessly through american express of rudy why okay, everybody buys office supplies but why did rudy buy 1300 dollars worth of french lax?

burgundy colored french wax and belittles here covered with burgundy covered french wax. 1300 qort is this to stamp letters you know with his seal? it had to be something going on here, and just in brief, how did he -- how did he make his counterfeits he was very respectful of vintages a place and he remembers how wines would taste basically he bought -- commercial grade burgundies old ones which were lost and sellers in france, he had them shipped to his house in california, with and when he opened bottle of 1945 -- he knew it was hot he knew there was more force to the wine. and pull out half of the bottle. pour in half aing the bottle of a good quality california young

and when you tried that wine, you would say -- you. this has the funk of old burgundy. but underneath is all of this -- youthful, young -- surging fruit it's amazing after 60 years this wine still taste young. but it is also a funky and he always made sure that these bottles were molded like bottles were back then and made sure is glass was heavy and he made sure they had a -- a deposit you know all wines leave at the deposit we know at the bottom of the bottle and -- but this was a deposit when bottle lying flat for many, many years, it starts to get a crust in the neck of the bottle. and he always asks the dealers who he was buying this define from is it hand molded does it have a crust so he was careful about all of this and when you tasted that wine, when many people including very big time

critics tasted it they were fooled. so i don't blame them for that. because wine is the depght of wine changes all of the time. i'll just say there's one thing -- taster told me if you're in a restaurant and a couple has a bottle of wine between them and they're not on good terms that bottle of wine will not taste good. [laughter] take that bottle of wine put it on a table where there's a lovey dovey couple that wine will taste very good. [laughter] same bottle. and i never tried that experiment but -- i believe peter on that one. so it's very tough to really know what the real wine is rudy was very good at making his counterfeit. >> again, please come up to the microphone in center open for audience questions. and i'll just keep going until -- until there is a line or -- got one.

this was interesting to hear all your stories fit together and we can laugh because they relied against cultural and no one was killed i hope so you have on seases in your stories. and -- what was closest you got to feeling their obsession and permitting what they did. it was a crime. but wine case they can feel like who was hurt and so -- what was your mommy where you kind of felt like i can see what the criminal is. i know you step back because -- i'm curious how close you got. >> anybody? >> well i was never temped to scale a museum wall. but i would say like oh i see why you do this. i see -- i think this is no. i tied trout flies which are

ugly little things made to look like real insects and -- and so there's some i tried tieing one of these salmon flies once they take eight to ten hours to tie a single one. i want to see if my brain would get activated and or there are a lot of these just absurd worlds like no you can only do two wraps of tensile there or two turns of fur there and it is just bs. you know. so -- [laughter] ...

i never was really ever able to tap into that. if i could just add what strikes me about this is the people who spend a lot of money the most expensive single bottle was a giant bottle of 1971 which in new york real estate dealer paid $85,000 for. you have to ask yourself similar to what you said what is he going to do with an 85,000-dollar bottle of wine? [laughter] who is on your a-list? who is on your aaa list or your 10,000-dollar bottle. they are like gold bars. they end up being put in temperature controlled cellars and they sit there until usually had some strong moment in the market the one who owns it says

i will resell this now and i will make a profit. so presumably precious lives of another age are passed from one toy in there to another none of whom are going to pull the cork because it's too expensive. >> i think with dinosaur bones what he seemed to be into with the idea of going forever back in time and further up the food chain. the idea of having a warehouse full of these enormous tyrannosaurus bonds, bones. nobody else had that. there were museum prepares and preppers who know how to put a creature like that together so i think he is an ambitious guy in his own way. and the thought of being one of the few people who could do that kind of work i think was interesting to him.

he wanted to take his children someday around the world to the museums where he has specimens and to show them what daddy had done. that was part of this goal and there's this survival that he provided for his family. at a certain point he had a choice to make. he had two roads to take. get into dinosaurs or don't get into dinosaurs and at that point he was in a corner and had to make it choice. i think he was finding things in becoming an expert of doing something few other people can do. >> thank you. >> you are watching. >> hello. i was wondering when if ever this is reported to a person? two of the victims and maybe even the person who committed the crime.

>> the crime itself or how you present the story. >> we have made some money to write the story. one of my author meant her friends told me already like this is set in a way that we can get their stories but i guess in my case as i said i spent years talking them into agreeing to tell his story on the record to give him a chance to tell his side of the story rather than what i had found out on my own by other people. so that was kind of -- we were both grownups and he told me his side of it. some of what he said turned out to be a lie and some of it was true and it caused me to change some of my assumptions.

but we are dealing with living human beings. you have to be incredibly careful about that because my book is going to be part of his life for the rest of his life. i wasn't out there to rent his life or anything but there's also a fundamental lack of justice in this case because he never spent a night behind bars and there was a huge ongoing criminal activity surrounding him. in that regard i felt like you have your own life but something bad is going to happen here. >> your questions are very good ones and i recall janet malcolm a great gentleman's writer wrote a book called the sickly the journalist of the murder and she starts out saying any journalist who doesn't know he is using his

subject hypocrite idiot blah, blah, blah and she goes on to explain how we used our people for our purposes to make money, to tell a story and you know it does make me wince and the only defense that i have or that any of us have is to tell the story not to bully the person in. tickets we have enormous power on the. page. the nicest interview i saw on my book was in the "washington post," i'm sorry u.s. times put it on the christmas book list and said even though it's -- and i said thank you because here is a generous young guy who gave a great wines away until he couldn't find them anyway like the dinosaur and he said well i can't get these anymore.

they don't reproduce with artificial insemination like that. i can't buy this anymore but i know what it tastes like and the people who tastes it won't know the difference. he fell into it only when he couldn't buy the real wine. >> the other question about that and that is such a good question, for me one element is how at italy the subject is participating and what you are trying to do. in my case he could not have been more forthcoming. he is reserved but the night before he went to prison he handed me his best computer and said look through it, look at my tax returns. here are lots of photos and here

are all of my e-mails. i had access to everything. the whole chain of the black market event that led to that. >> what why do you think he gave you all of that? >> you know in the absence of getting someone to tell their story to you i need documents. i always want to see what's on paper. if you tell me this e-mail existed can you show me that so i can confirm it? you can tell me one thing but at could be a total lie. he smuggles, he's a smuggler but he never lied to me. i think he did it as i explained the reporting process and said it would make a feel more comfortable if i could see whatever you have on paper and i can see how to take it. he was so exhausted that point. he had to go to prison the next morning and it was a gigantic

mess. homeland security had tested that computer beforehand and everything was in disarray. it was a little hard to make sense of some of it but he was deeply forthcoming. that made me feel okay and good about telling his story because he was an active participant in the reporting process as was the rest of his family. i know we are out of time but this young man has been waiting so if we can squeeze him and and make sure everyone gets signed copies of the book. >> real quick you mentioned it in your own way but i'm curious to the extent of the process going on if you identify the subject. you always put yourself in the person you're writing about of the being of system driven. the mind of the very devious person who felt everyone is

right. is there a process? >> what was the last part of the question? >> identify the people who you write about. >> yeah in terms of having to know something or get something or understand something or complete something i interested that intuitively. i understand also what drove him was being outdoors and interacting with nature in a way that even though i have no concept in that i really didn't. i understood that intuitively somehow that he needed to be out there and pulling up old life forms. i get that. i get that maybe it's just being a history lover or an outdoors lover.

it seemed natural to me but in terms of gathering facts like you take the shiny bits and hoard them away and figure out how to deploy them later in the reporting in the storytelling. >> i answered your question is i did not identify with them except to the extent that i was always a. journalist did a study to the lady be so much. journalism diminished and my own begin to diminish and former newspapers like "the news york times" and former terrific magazines like "life" magazine became extinct. if i was to think what crime would i commit to get out of this crazy. journalism business what would i do? i would certainly want to do the robin hood thing take stuff from rich people. i'm not sure i'd give it to poor people but i would definitely take it from the rich people. i would eat half robin hood. billions of dollars i would sell

him wine and i would just walk away and take out money and what's that restaurant? i would just have a good time. i wouldn't feel bad. these guys that rudy targeted, they were billionaires. >> i guess for me i have always thought if i had met at 100 different circumstances we probably would have become best friends. he seems like a very likeable person and he reminds me of other friends of mine. i can understand why he did what he did. i'm not at all sympathetic but for me in this remote village in norway where there was, i flew there to confront someone that i

suspect it was an accomplice. there were over 30 hours of interviews. i wore him down until they broke down into tears in front of me and admitted his involvement. they are waiting for her report from me on this and i could have made his life very unpleasant but he ended up doing the right thing and returning what he had to the museum. in that regard if you've read the book i had a pretty deep connection to this other kid because i felt like he had just trusted the wrong person and he had been taken advantage of. he had done something wrong and it was much more understandable to me but you mentioned we have this power on the written page and i didn't know what is going to do with this information.

once i figured out because identified with this guy, i didn't do anything. >> thank you. thank you peter, kirk and paige. [applause] you can get a book and have it signed. that would be happening in the back of the sanctuary. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon everybo