I sped through this book, and my only criticism would be that I think there was space for one more case study!

I work in environmental science communications, and am a nature/science writer myself. So I already had a good deal of familiarity with some of the cases in 'Green Crime', particularly those of the illegal fishing and elephant poaching. Some of the other cases were ones I knew as much about as the next person - VW and Dieselgate, the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and the persecution of environmental defenders in the Amazon. And there was one I'd never heard of at all, quite shockingly I think, given the extent of human suffering it has involved - illegal gold mining in South Africa.

But regardless of how much I already knew about the issues covered, the way Shaw crafts her narrative and analysis makes each case utterly compelling. Shaw draws on what is clearly an extensive collective of research to conjure in-the-moment scenes and their aftermaths, including interviews with some of those directly involved in the cases, or with other key insights. I wasn't so much a fan of the "textbookish" listing of the key factors behind environmental crime that was used as a framework at the end of each chapter to summarise why, in each case, people had done what they did - but the book as a whole was easily readable enough to make up for this.

The conclusion focuses more on what we can each do as an individual to lighten our load on the planet and encourage others to do the same; something of a break from the rest of the book's content, but important and well-argued nonetheless.