If you want to smuggle cocaine, first get yourself a tropical fish. Then double-wrap the fish in a bag of water, which you float inside a bigger bag full of clear liquefied cocaine. Or you can load the coke into condoms, stuff the condoms into live boa constrictors, and then sew up the snakes’ anuses. Better yet, just smuggle some endangered baby reptiles in your underwear (to keep them warm). Even if Customs catches you, you won’t go to prison for carrying critters that most jury members would happily kill with a shovel. These are just a few of the tips and tricks you can pick up in Bryan Christy’s book, The Lizard King: The True Crimes and Passions of the World’s Greatest Reptile Smugglers.

Wildlife smuggling and drug smuggling are twin threads running through the book. Christy makes multiple connections between the two: the potential for obscene profits, the open warfare between smugglers and federal agents, and the shared psychology of addiction. According to Christy’s account, “herps” (people who love reptiles) follow a progression from commonly available species to rarer, “hotter” species. Like drug addicts, they are constantly in search of their next herpetological “high.”

This is Christy’s first published book, and it reflects his experience writing freelance articles. Individual chapters often feel like freestanding magazine pieces. The main narrative, pitting an Ivory-pure federal agent against a second-generation reptile smuggler, fails to gel until the second half of the book. However, there are moments when Christy deftly zeroes-in on the nucleus of complex situations and moral dilemmas. For example, in describing the Byzantine intricacy of the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), Christy writes, “CITES was a system of rules. It was a framework for channeling commercial wildlife trade, stopping it only when necessary to save a species from extinction. That was the compromise inherent in the treaty.”

Before he turned to writing, Christy was an attorney. This could explain his ability to craft a sympathetic portrait of the book’s main character, smuggling kingpin Mike Van Nostrand, while admitting that the man is a foul-mouthed, bigoted, sociopath. But you don’t have to admire reptiles (whether human or animal) to enjoy this book. If you like a good Indiana Jones adventure, Christy’s work is loaded with all the colorful characters, entertaining asides, and exotic locations you could desire.