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The Cyanide Canary.

Article Excerpt
The Cyanide Canary Joseph Hilldorfer Robert Dugoni Free Press www.simonsays.com 352 pp., $26

The book jacket touts "A Story of Injustice: One man caused it, one man fought it, one man's life was destroyed by it." Yes, a man caused the injustice and a man suffered, but the "man" who fought it was actually a whole chorus of characters attached to the EPA's law enforcement arm, and this book is really the story of how a little-known government agency carries out a sizable mission in the face of bureaucratic roadblocks.

This environmental crime story is not a whodunit; it focuses on the investigation--an approach Law & Order fans will appreciate. The story is told from the perspective of coauthor Joseph Hilldorfer, a Seattle-based special agent for the EPA's Criminal Investigation Division (EPA/CID). For him, the job is as serious as his former one: FBI agent. He describes the case against the defendant as "the environmental-crime equivalent of proving ... first-degree murder."

Readers may think of environmental crime as misconduct by corporations that, for example, don't adequately monitor the runoff from their plants, allowing it to contaminate...