Excerpt from The Dragon Behind the Glass by Emily Voigt, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

His pregnant girlfriend, who had emerged from the bedroom, yawning and looking unamused, added, "There's a lot of people that sell alligators."

"It's a criminal offense," Fitzpatrick told them, explaining that New York State prohibits the commercial sale of live crocodilians, while the city goes further, banning just about every exotic pet from scorpions to ferrets to polar bears. The Nile monitor was illegal too and would have to be seized. Cruz looked crestfallen as his girlfriend found an empty shoebox, into which he gingerly lifted the tiny lizard, wrapping it in a T-shirt to protect it from the cold.

Excerpted from The Dragon Behind the Glass by Emily Voigt. Copyright © 2016 by Emily Voigt. Excerpted by permission of Scribner. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.