Excellent book that covers not only the tale of Law against Poachers, but also covers the natural sciences history of the Pacific Northwest. I had no idea so much of this was happening just off shore - or the labryinth of legalities surrounding aqua-hunting, and the history of how those laws came about. Another "can't put it down" read. My only quibble is with the many many flashbacks, flash forwards, interruptions of the story. The storylines could have been organized a bit better. It felt like they were trying to present all these strings of storyline, and then "see how they all weave together?!" but ... it needed a better foundation upon which the storylines could rest. ( )

Poaching is something that most people are familiar with, but more often than not most people associate it with hunting, where a single person kills an animal or two out of season, or he poaches a few endangered animals for some precious material or another. What people don't think about are massive poaching operations, that remove a huge population of animals from an ecosystem in one fell swoop with devastating consequences afterwards.

Shell Games focuses on illegal fishing in the Pacific Northwest, primarily in the Puget Sound of Washington state. It uses a case of illegal geoduck poaching to create a 'storyline' of a sort to move the book along, told from the perspective of detectives and informants alike, but it also speaks broadly about illegal fishing in general, covering instances of white sturgeon, dungeness crab, and leopard sharks.

While I wouldn't consider the book groundbreaking, it does a great job recounting the geoduck poaching and sting operations in the late 90's/early 2000's. Definitely recommend if you are interested in topic, or live in the Pacific Northwest. I'd also recommend The Lizard King by Bryan Christy along with it. ( )

The author successfully shines the light on illegal wildlife poaching for overseas markets, not in the plains of Africa, but in the waterways of the United States. This is a gripping read with interesting characters and a few twists and turns that gives life to a story that would usually appear in the latter pages of your weekend newspaper. ( )

Amazing to realize that this is truth,not fiction. Great investigative journalism involving a shellfish ( )