Overview

Tortoises disappear from a Madagascar reserve and reappear in the Bronx Zoo. A dead iguana floats in a jar, awaiting its unveiling in a Florida court. A viper causes mayhem from Ethiopia to Virginia. In ""Stolen World,"" Jennie Erin Smith takes the reader on an unforgettable journey, a dark adventure over five decades and six continents. In 1965, Hank Molt, a young cheese salesman from Philadelphia, reinvented himself as a ""specialist dealer in rare fauna,"" traveling the world to collect exquisite reptiles for zoos and museums. By the end of the decade that followed, new endangered species laws had turned Molt into a convicted smuggler, and an unrepentant one, who went on to provide many of the same rare reptiles to many of the same institutions, covertly. But Molt soon found a rival in Tommy Crutchfield, a Florida carpet salesman with every intention of usurping Molt as the most accomplished reptile smuggler in the country. Like Molt, Crutchfield had modeled himself after an earlier generation of natural-history collectors celebrated for their service to science, an ideal that, for Molt and Crutchfield, eclipsed the realities of the new wildlife-protection laws. Zoo curators, caught between a desire for rare animals and the conservation-minded focus of their institutions, became the smugglers' antagonists in court but also their best customers, sometimes simultaneously. Crutchfield forged ties with a criminally inclined Malaysian wildlife trader and emerged a millionaire, beloved by some of the finest zoos in the world. Molt, following a string of inventive but disastrous smuggling schemes in New Guinea, was reduced to hanging around Crutchfield's Florida compound, plotting Crutchfield's demise. The fallout from their feud would result in a major federal investigation with tentacles in Germany, Madagascar, Holland, and Malaysia. And yet even after prison, personal ruin, and the depredations of age, Molt and Crutchfield never stopped scheming, never stopped longing for the snake or lizard that would earn each his rightful place in a world that had forgotten them--or rather, had never recognized them to begin with.

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Reviews

Vile, venomous and best kept under lock and key - and that's just the people in this gripping book. Jennie Erin Smith spent a decade investigating the strange world of reptile collectors and dealers who specialise in rare species. I couldn't put this book down, partly because it's a ripping yarn of wildlife cops versus reptile robbers, but also because I was mesmerised by the horror of it all. <br>-- New Scientist <br> [An] accomplished, often uproarious account of the international reptile trade. <br>-- New Yorker <br> Discoveringeccentric people who are passionately engaged in a fringe activity is the journalist's equivalent of striking gold. In Stolen World, Jennie Erin Smith's investigation into the exotic-animal trade finds a rich vein. Ms. Smith has an eye for offbeat detail, and there's something startling or funny on nearly every page. <br>-- Wall Street Journal <br> VERDICT: All readers will be amazed at the sordid details of how these exotic animals get to p

""Vile, venomous and best kept under lock and key - and that's just the people in this gripping book. Jennie Erin Smith spent a decade investigating the strange world of reptile collectors and dealers who specialise in rare species. I couldn't put this book down, partly because it's a ripping yarn of wildlife cops versus reptile robbers, but also because I was mesmerised by the horror of it all."" --""New Scientist"" ""[An] accomplished, often uproarious account of the international reptile trade."" --""New Yorker"" ""Discoveringeccentric people who are passionately engaged in a fringe activity is the journalist's equivalent of striking gold. In ""Stolen World,"" Jennie Erin Smith's investigation into the exotic-animal trade finds a rich vein. Ms. Smith has an eye for offbeat detail, and there's something startling or funny on nearly every page."" --""Wall Street Journal"" ""VERDICT: All readers will be amazed at the sordid details of how these exotic animals get to pet shops and zoos."" --""Library Journal"" ""A remarkable book...as exciting as a well-written novel. ""Stolen World"" is haunting, passionate, and cuts to the very heart of the illegal reptile trading world."" --Larry Cox, King Features Syndicate ""Deeply funny ....Smith couldn't have found a better collection of characters than the ""risk junkies"" she's assembled."" --""The Week"" "" "" ""As alarming, bizarre and occasionally as grimly funny as any tale of smugglers and their booty....this is a mournful story for anyone who loves nature, who hopes to encounter out there somewhere along the trail something rare and beautiful."" --""Dallas Morning News"" ""I'm trying to think of the best way to say how absolutely marvelous""Stolen World"" is and wondering if the answer can't be found in the subtitle: 'A Tale of Reptiles, Smugglers, and Skulduggery.' Yes, it's got all that, along with screwball comedy and a subtle, understated sermon on ecological values. But wait! -

Author Information

JENNIE ERIN SMITH is a freelance science reporter and a frequent reviewer on animals and natural history for the ""Times Literary Supplement."" She is a recipient of the Rona Jaffe Award for women writers, a fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, two first-place awards from the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors, and the Waldo Proffitt Award for environmental journalism.

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