The Lizard King

June 9, 2008
Albino pythons, endangered lizards and other reptiles are the currency of an underworld as dangerous and lucrative as the drug trade. Freelance writer Christy’s debut is an enthusiastic but scattered chronicle of the rise and fall of a lizard kingpin and the federal agent who pursued him. Mike Van Nostrand inherited Strictly Reptiles, an import-export business in Florida, from his father, Ray, turning it into a multimillion-dollar smuggling operation. Van Nostrand imported reptiles of all shapes and sizes, usually concealed in the suitcases or clothing of his mules, and sold them to collectors and pet stores. He exploited loopholes in the international treaty on endangered-species trade and paid off corrupt officials. In the early 1990s, Fish and Wildlife Services agent Chip Bepler set his sights on Van Nostrand. After Bepler’s years of surveillance and hard work, Van Nostrand was sentenced to eight months in prison, his export license revoked, and Strictly Reptiles was forced to pay $250,000 in fines to a wildlife fund. Christy’s frenetic approach—bouncing from Mike’s smuggling to young Ray catching snakes to the neglect of wildlife crime prosecution—is disorienting in what could have been a fascinating tale.

July 1, 2008
Who knew the world of reptile smuggling was so poisonous? In his first book, freelance magazine writer Christy focuses on one smuggler, Miamis notorious Michael Van Nostrand (and his father, Raymond), and one lawman, Chip Bepler, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agent who dedicated his career to putting Van Nostrand away. Set in the mid-1990s, the story is reminiscent of the film version of Frank W. Abagnales Catch Me if You Can: the determined lawman, the flamboyant scofflaw (although Van Nostrand, unlike Abagnale, is thoroughly unlikable), the eventual showdown. Christy, a reptile aficionado who apparently did a lot of hands-on research for the book, takes us deep inside the world of the smuggler, laying out just how a Miami pet-shop owner gets his hands on rare and protected species and explaining the intricacies of U.S. and international laws that provide the smuggler with plenty of loopholes (you couldnt prosecute someone merely for having smuggled animals, for example; you had to prove he knew they were smuggled). An exciting story of smugglers, lawmen, corrupt government officials, organized crime, and slithery beasts.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)