![]() ![]() "Stolen World" is the story of two men, Hank Molt and Tom Crutchfield, who, at one time or another since the 1960s, have been players in a shady, scruffy scene that Molt refers to as "the reptile world." It is populated by men who have been obsessed with scaly creatures since their youth and have devoted their adulthood to studying, collecting and trading in the animals, frequently in contravention of U.S. (And yes, a lot of it takes place in Florida.) Jennie Erin Smith's "Stolen World: A Tale of Reptiles, Smugglers, and Skulduggery" 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. ![]() 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. ![]()
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