Shell Games: Rogues, Smugglers, and the Hunt for Nature's Bounty

Shell Games is a cops-and-robbers tale set in a double-crossing world where smugglers fight turf wars over some of the world's strangest marine creatures.

Puget Sound sits south of the border between the U.S. and Canada and is home to the magnificent geoduck (pronounced gooey duck), the world's largest burrowing clam. Comically proportioned but increasingly fashionable as seafood, the geoduck has been the subject of pranks, TV specials, and gourmet feasts. But this shellfish is so valuable it is also traded for millions of dollars on the black market — a world where outlaw scuba divers dodge cops while using souped-up boats, night-vision goggles, and weighted belts to pluck the succulent treasures from the sea floor. And the greatest dangers come from rival poachers who resort to arson and hit men to eliminate competition and stake their claim in the geoduck market.

Detective Ed Volz spent his life chasing elk-antler thieves, bobcat smugglers, and eagle talon poachers. Now he was determined to find the kingpin of the geoduck underworld. He and a team of federal agents set up illegal sales, secretly recorded conversations, and photographed hand-offs from the bushes. For years, they tracked a rogues' gallery of lawbreakers, who eventually led them to the biggest thief of all — a darkly charming con man who called himself the GeoduckGotti and who worked both sides of the law.

In Shell Games, veteran environmental journalist Craig Welch delves into the wilds of our nation's waters and forests in search of some of America's most unusual criminals and the cops who are on a mission to take them down. This thrilling examination of the international black market for wildlife is filled with butterfly thieves, bear slayers, and shark-trafficking pastors — all part of one of the largest illegal trades in the world.

"In this deep-sea true-crime narrative, journalist Welch entertains and horrifies with tales of poachers and the law enforcement officers devoted to chasing them down. Stories range across the wildlife spectrum, from bears killed for their gallbladders (used 'to treat cancers, burns, and liver and stomach problems') to Moonies harvesting baby leopard sharks off California's Catalina Island for pet shops. The book focuses on fisheries in the Pacific Northwest and features the 'oversize, ugly, and still somehow charming' geoduck clam, which resembles nothing more than 'a giant penis,' and an equally larger-than-life Native American fisherman and artist, Doug Tobin, 'a charmer, a prankster, a benefactor, and a bully.' Tobin, originally enlisted by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife detectives as an informant to help catch geoduck poachers, ends up stealing millions of dollars worth of geoduck and Dungeness crab, the ecological consequences of which will take decades to evaluate. Welch's vivid depictions and broad coverage of this global, ecologically disastrous illegal trafficking provide a sympathetic glimpse into the dedication and frustration of wildlife crime fighters." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Welch's utterly compelling true tale of black-market trade in endangered ocean wildlife is astounding and infuriating." Booklist

"The criminals are quirky rather than terrifying and the pacing is measured rather than breathless, making it an appropriate choice for readers who prefer less intensity in true-crime narratives." Library Journal

"[A]n eye-opener, exposing a murky world operating just below the surface." Oregonian

"Mr. Welch...continually circles back to an investigator named Ed Volz and an informer, smuggler and convict named Doug Tobin. They are perfect antagonists." Wall Street Journal

The chief environmental writer for the Seattle Times, Welch details law enforcement efforts to curtail the poaching and smuggling of the geoduck in the Puget Sound. The world's largest burrowing clam, it is increasingly popular as seafood, and is traded for millions of dollars on the black market. Among his perspectives are the hunt, snitches, clam kings, life undercover, kingpin, an incredible virus, a sea of abundance, crab men, and the whole west coast. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Shell Games is a delightfully offbeat cops-and-robbers tale set in the rough-and-tumble heart of one of America's strangest subcultures, a double-crossing world where tough men and women fight turf wars over shellfish. Photos throughout.

Craig Welch is the chief environmental writer for the Seattle Times. His work has been published in Smithsonian magazine, the Washington Post and Newsweek. He has won dozens of local, regional and national journalism awards, and has been named the national Society of Environmental Journalists's Outstanding Beat Reporter of the Year. In 2007, he completed a fellowship at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.