The Impossible Thing
Belinda Bauer
309 pages
Publshed February 27th, 2025
Transworld Publishing
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The Impossible Thing is a charming dual timeline story about the bizarre hobby of wild bird egg collecting, which apparently peaked in popularity in the early 20th century, but remains a Thing in certain circles now – who knew? Belinda Bauer writes superbly quirky mysteries with unforgettable characters and unusual plots.
A young girl from a poor farming family, rejected by her siblings for not looking like them, turns their fortunes around when she finds a rare egg on the cliffs near her home. A century later, that same egg is stolen from Patrick Fort’s friend Nick – whose efforts to get it back reveal the lengths collectors will go to in service to their obsession.
I had not realised that this was a sequel to Rubberneck, which has been on my Want To Read list for a while now, but didn’t feel that I had missed anything as this is a complete story. It took me a while to get into this, but once the story got going, I was hooked. I love Bauer’s writing and the quirkiness of her flawed heroes. Patrick is autistic but she doesn’t make a big deal of this and he’s a sympathetic protagonist, while Weird Nick’s motivations are dubious but he’s persuaded to do the right thing eventually.
It’s a hard book to categorise, because there is a mystery and a crime, but I wouldn’t call it Crime Fiction, there’s bittersweet humour, but it’s certainly not a comedy, half the story is set in the past but it’s much more than Historical Fiction, and there’s a little girl who grows up, but it’s not a Coming of Age story either. I’ll just call it Genre-bending and recommend it to anyone with the caveat that there are scenes of callous cruelty towards birds (or rather their unhatched chicks) that I found distressing to read about. Thanks to Transworld for the ARC.
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