The best way I've come up with this describe this book is, it's like The Orchid Thief, but with gators instead of orchids, and if Susan Orlean had been a native Floridian. Rebecca Renner, a lifelong Floridian, quits her job as a teacher to pursue journalism and I'm so glad because she's great at it! She's able to get stories that I question if a non-Floridian would ever be able to get. And also she treats the state, especially the flora and fauna, with respect and even at time reverence. Don't get me wrong--she sees where the trope of "Florida Man" comes from and she gets the joke--but she's not going to be telling that joke here.
She follows an undercover case brought by the Florida Fish and Wildlife department. An officer goes undercover for more than a year, opening an alligator farm, to get to know and infiltrate local gator farmers, who if they're not poachers themselves, often work with poachers. This had been previously attempted, unsuccessfully. But Officer Jeff Babauta is very, very good at undercover work. In the background, Ms. Renner also researches a historical poacher who seems apocryphal but was real, eventually finding his family, and getting the inside scoop. It's so fascinating how a lot of these people are very much on both sides of the law--some of the poachers are the most close to and even fanatical about nature and wildlife. When the government first tried to get into the Everglades, they often unwittingly hired poachers to show them around. And then the poachers knew which areas they left off the maps (intentionally) that were still safe.
The alligators, especially the babies, are really endearing. And Officer Babauta gets attached to them. And has to remind himself that despite having made friends with some of the gator poachers he's going to have to betray, that's in service of saving the alligators.
With beautiful writing, inside scoops, and a unique story, this was a fascinating read.
This book is published by Flatiron Books, a division of Macmillan, my employer.
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