Jeremy Seal travels to the USA, Africa, Australia and India to meet people living amongst the world's deadliest snakes - and attempts to overcome his personal fear in the process. The compelling narrative is linked by a real-life murder mystery - a fundamentalist preacher attempts to get away with the perfect murder by forcing his wife, at gunpoint, to put her hands in the boxes where he keeps his rattlesnakes . . .

'Travel books don't come much quirkier than Jeremy Seal's compelling little treasure...a thrilling read' Daily Mail

'Seal's descriptions of the creatures themselves are elegent, exotic and sensual, and he is never better than when he falls into a kind of hypnotic clarity, animating the colour, shape, movement and character of his animals' Simon Armitage, Sunday Times

'Highly entertaining...an intelligent and richly enjoyable work' Mail on Sunday

'Seal is a brilliant writer and, quite possibly, a life-saving one' Evening Standard

'Spritely...[Seal] is a deft stylist. Dialogue and dialect are adroitly handled, jokes judiciously lobbed in to leaven the mix...Jeremy Seal is a very good writer and a very interesting one' Daily Telegraph