The Orchid Thief

<b><i>NEW YORK TIMES </i>BESTSELLER • A <i>NEW YORK TIMES </i>NOTABLE BOOK • THE BASIS FOR THE FILM <i>ADAPTATION</i> DIRECTED BY SPIKE JONZE AND STARRING NICOLAS CAGE AND MERYL STREEP</b><br><br><b>The “eccentric, illuminating, [and] hilarious” (New York <i>Daily News</i>) true story of beauty and obsession in the swamps of Florida and the impassioned individuals who risk everything for the ultimate prize: a rare ghost orchid</b><br><br><b>“Fascinating . . . an engrossing journey [full] of theft, hatred, greed, jealousy, madness, and backstabbing.”—<i>Los Angeles Times</i></b><br><br>Meet John Laroche, a deeply eccentric and oddly attractive renegade plant dealer. In 1994, Laroche and three Seminole men were arrested with rare ghost orchids—<i>Polyrrhiza lindenii—</i>they had stolen from a wild swamp in South Florida. Laroche had planned to clone the endangered orchids and sell them for a small fortune to impassioned buyers.<br><br>In <i>The Orchid Thief, </i>acclaimed journalist Susan Orlean follows Laroche through swamps and into the eccentric world of Florida’s orchid collectors, a subculture of aristocrats, fanatics, and smugglers whose obsession with plants is all-consuming. This unforgettable tour of America’s strange flower-selling subculture becomes even more bizarre as Orlean details how the head of a famous Seminole chief came to be displayed in the front window of a local pharmacy, how seven hundred iguanas were smuggled into Florida, and the case of the only known extraterrestrial plant crime. <br><b> </b><br>A modern classic of personal journalism, <i>The Orchid Thief</i> is a wickedly funny, elegant, and captivating tale of an amazing obsession.