Craig Pittman -- The Scent of Scandal -- Gables

Start: May 2 2012 8:00 pm

After its discovery, Phragmipedium kovachii became the rarest and most sought-after orchid in the world. Prices soared to $10,000 on the black market. Then one showed up at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens. Then came search warrants, a grand jury investigation, and criminal charges. Investigative journalist Craig Pittman unravels this tangled web to shine a spotlight on flaws in the international treaties governing trade in endangered wildlife. The Scent of Scandal (Univ Press of Fl, $24.95) unspools like a riveting mystery novel, stranger than anything in The Orchid Thief or the film Adaptation. Pittman shows how some people can become so obsessed—with beauty, with profit, with fame—that they will ignore everything, even the law.