Around Noon: January 2000

To Catch an Orchid Thief: Interview with Susan Orlean
Originally aired Friday, January 21
They are "more mysterious than pretty, endlessly enticing and even strange." This is the way author, Susan Orlean describes the wild orchid flowers of Florida in her new book The Orchid Thief. This would also be a fitting description for the main character of her true life, crime story - John Laroche. In 1994, Laroche was arrested along with three Seminole Indians for stealing rare orchids from the Fakahatchee State Preserve, a wild swamp in South Florida. Susan Orlean recently visited our 90.3 WCPN studios, and Around Noon's Dee Perry talked with her about the book and the man she described as the "most moral, amoral person" she's ever met.