Stolen World

Starred review from October 18, 2010
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.

November 15, 2010

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.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

February 15, 2011

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

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.