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…there's more…Because reptiles, eternally repellent and charming, aren't really the main subject here, even though they're a constant ingredient. And petty crime, although wonderful to read aboutespecially if it's not happening to youisn't the central theme either. No, it's the guys…What turns "Stolen World" from sober, well-researched nonfiction into a wacky comedy is that these men are at once stunningly innovative, dizzyingly incompetent, quite sociopathic and very low on bookkeeping skills.
The New York Times
In this very disturbing and very entertaining chronicle of reptile smugglers, the collectors and zoo keepers who trade with them, and the federal agents who try to catch them, the humans are as devious, dangerous, and creepily charming as the cold-blooded creatures they lust after. Science reporter Smith bases her book on extensive original interviews with two smugglers: Henry Molt Jr. is a reptile dealer who, in the 1960s, unable to get a job with a zoo, began a lifelong career of reptile collecting involving restless international travel, partner-stiffing, and jail time, with an undaunted enthusiasm that's survived into his 60s: "The reptile business ‘is a disease,' he said, and you can't retire from a disease." Equally outrageous is the volatile, knife-wielding Tommy Crutchfield, who expanded his childhood alligator-and-snake business into a million-dollar empire of reptile hunting and dealing. Even the curators of the Bronx and San Diego zoos let their obsession with the animals lure them into deals in order to obtain illegally imported rare breeds. Smith's affection for these unsavory people gives the book an intriguing moral ambiguity (which might make some environmentalists cringe), but the subculture's brazen shenanigans make for a convoluted, fascinating tale. (Jan.)
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! - as they say in those zany TV commercials – there’s more! At some point in her creative process, journalist Jennie Erin Smith has added, in semi-invisible ink, ‘And That Crazy Brother of Yours, Who Hides in the Basement and Plays With Mamba Snakes, Even Though He’s 53 Years Old’…this book is a treat.”
—Washington Post
“Any work of nonfiction that contains the sentence ‘He boarded a plane to Stuttgart with a Tasmanian devil in his hand luggage’ is a title worth attending to, but when the man with the carnivorous marsupial in his carry-on is merely a supporting character — and not the most interesting one at that — it's time to cancel your dinner date and take the phone off the hook. Jennie Erin Smith's Stolen World is a book that fully justifies such measures, a flabbergasting chronicle of atrocious behavior, foolhardy schemes and dangerous animals that reads like a real-life Elmore Leonard novel.”
—Salon.com
“Science reporter Smith debuts with an exciting tale of reptile smuggling . . . A richly detailed narrative of global malfeasance.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Very disturbing and very entertaining chronicle of reptile smugglers... Science reporter Smith's affection for these unsavory people gives the book an intriguing moral ambiguity (which might make some environmentalists cringe), but the subculture's brazen shenanigans make for a convoluted, fascinating tale.” —Publisher’s Weekly, Starred Review
“IF DARWIN, DOSTOYEVSKY, AND GEORGE LUCAS had collaborated on a novel, it might have resembled Stolen World. But it’s all true. The characters of Henry Molt and Tommy Crutchfield are Indiana Jones wannabes rewritten by Monty Python, as bizarre, dark, funny, and irresistible as any of the nobler yet loonier protagonists of fiction. Jennie Erin Smith has unearthed a riveting tale of the collision of the old world of zoological adventuring and the new world of Greenpeace and political correctness. And her writing serves it up superbly, the equal to every fantastic element of this wondrous, strange, endearing story of human folly.”
—Peter Nichols, author of A Voyage for Madmen
“The snakes in the grass are not necessarily reptiles in Jennie Erin Smith’s marvelous book. They’re smugglers in love with wild life in all of its manifestations, and you’ll find yourself
rooting for them against the zooreaucrats who lust after the same beautiful and often deadly beasts. Smith conveys this stolen world with—dare I say it?—a viperish wit.”
—Will Blythe, author of To Hate Like This is to Be Happy Forever
Snakes and other reptiles give many people the creeps; however, a few individuals, beyond zookeepers and zoologists, are completely enthralled by them. Obsession and fascination drive some through a succession of stages from simply keeping reptiles as pets to acquiring and selling reptiles to finally traveling to whatever country necessary to find more, stranger, and rarer creatures to satisfy the compulsion and make money. Trafficking in endangered and protected animals is generally reviled, although reptiles usually evoke less empathy than other animals and most people don't understand the conditions by which these creatures are found and captured. To illustrate all of this and more, science journalist Smith documents the lives, travels, business booms/busts, and legal problems of two of the most infamous Americans involved in the reptile trade, Hank Molt and Tom Crutchfield, as well as an assorted cast of frequently slippery, devious hangers-on and associates and questionable businesses and governments in numerous countries. VERDICT All readers will be amazed at the sordid details of how these exotic animals get to pet shops and zoos.—Michael D. Cramer, Schwarz BioSciences, RTP, NC
Freelance science reporter Smith debuts with an exciting tale of reptile smuggling.
During the Victorian era's natural-history craze, British museums hired working-class freelancers to collect Asian wildlife specimens. Later, zoos in the United States turned to similar adventurers to obtain live animals. By World War II, the heyday of specimen collecting had ended. But that did not deter two young snake-smitten Americans, Hank Molt and Tom Crutchfield, from embarking on the colorful careers recounted here. For several decades, separately and together, they lied, cheated and skirted the law in an obsessive worldwide quest for rare species to sell to eager curators. Many of their best deals violated wildlife export bans and the Endangered Species Act of 1973. A former salesman taken from childhood by "the romance of the snake," Molt began dealing in reptiles in the 1960s, when the animal trade was still little regulated. Working out of a Pennsylvania pet shop (with help from a crazy ex-con), then from a brick storefront called the Exotarium, he filled the wish lists of many zoos. Once, he created a fake research institute in New Guinea to procure lizards and pythons for the Knoxville Zoo. Federal officials pursued Molt, calling him "an agent of extinction" and the "kingpin" of a multimillion-dollar smuggling ring. In fact, he netted $39,000 in his best year. Smith describes Molt's escapades as he travels around the world, using bribes, flattery and phony zoo uniforms, as needed, to acquire animals and get them safely past U.S. inspectors. In the '80s, his Florida-based rival Crutchfield, inspired by the Southern snake men who supplied traveling carnivals, quit his own sales job and built a hugely successful reptile business. His 120-acre Herpetofauna compound included a barn the size of an airplane hangar filled with lizards, turtles and snakes. Narcissistic and violent, he eventually became down-on-his-luck Molt's biggest buyer. Both men did time in prison, but kept coming back. "I'm addicted to drama," said Molt.
A richly detailed narrative of global malfeasance.