Shell Games - by Craig Welch (Paperback)

About the Book

A unique blend of natural history and crime drama, Shell Games by Craig Welch is a riveting tale of rogues, scoundrels, and the hunt for nature's bounty in the tradition of The Orchid Thief. A stranger-than-fiction true story centered around a larger-than-life character who pursued a larger-than-life clam--the Geoduck--and then led wildlife police on a two-year-long chase, Shell Games is enthralling and remarkable from page one on.

Book Synopsis

A unique blend of natural history and crime drama, Shell Games by Craig Welch is a riveting tale of rogues, scoundrels, and the hunt for nature's bounty in the tradition of The Orchid Thief. A stranger-than-fiction true story centered around a larger-than-life character who pursued a larger-than-life clam--the Geoduck--and then led wildlife police on a two-year-long chase, Shell Games is enthralling and remarkable from page one on.

From the Back Cover

In Shell Games, journalist Craig Welch delves into our nation's waters and wildlands in search of America's most unusual criminals. The resulting detective story is filled with butterfly thieves, bear poachers, shark-trafficking pastors--and a rogues' gallery of double-crossing crooks who get rich smuggling bizarre marine creatures.

Puget Sound is home to the geoduck (pronounced "gooey duck"), the world's largest burrowing clam--a seafood delicacy worth millions on the international black market. Outlaw scuba divers pursue this prize while dodging cops, committing arson, and hiring hit men to eliminate their rivals.Detective Ed Volz has spent decades chasing fish and wildlife smugglers. Now, he and a team of federal agents are desperate to take down the most remarkable thief they've ever hunted: a darkly charming con man who works both sides of the law and calls himself the "Geoduck Gotti."

Review Quotes

"With hit men, snitches, and midnight smuggling runs, this book has all the adventure of a Miami Vice episode. That it reads like a detective novel - with the quarry being millions of dollars of freakishly large clams - is testament to the formidable writing and reporting talents of Craig Welch." - Mark Obmascik, author of The Big Year and 2009 National Outdoor Book Award winner for Halfway to Heaven: My White-knuckled - and Knuckleheaded - Quest for the Rocky Mountain High

"Shell Games is a fiercely-reported and wholly captivating cops-and-robbers story about the black-market wildlife trade in the Pacific Northwest...with profound implications for wildlife--under unprecedented threat from poachers and smugglers using high-tech means to hunt and transport their sad bounty--around the globe." - Jonathan Miles, author of Dear American Airlines

"Forget CSI--this is the real deal, tracking down the greediest kinds of criminals as they plunder the planet's future. You may think that clams are nothing special, but before this book is many pages old you'll be rooting for the bivalves!" - Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet

"The wildest story of bivalve intrigue and skullduggery ever assembled between two covers." - Richard Ellis, author of Tuna: A Love Story and The Empty Ocean

"[A]n engrossing tale of both human excesses and the attempts of a few brave souls' to curb them. Everyone, not just the denizens of Puget Sound, has a stake in this battle's outcome." - Washington Post

"Riveting...Ed Volz and Doug Tobin are perfect antagonists." - Wall Street Journal

"Endlessly fascinating." - Seattle Times

"Welch brings us into the underworld of shellfish smuggling from multiple angles...Shell Games is an eye-opener, exposing a murky world operating just below the surface." - Oregonian

"Seattle Times writer Craig Welch's Shell Games: Rogues, Smugglers, and the Hunt for Nature's Bounty neatly represents this genre of 'you can't make this stuff up' drama...Welch does the homework involved to make this work stand out, providing a rich layer of detail that informs but does not slow down the cops and robbers adventuring. If anything, it brings a sense beyond the money, beyond the environmental impact, of why an enormous mollusk comes to muddy the waters of so many people's lives." - Minneapolis Star Tribune