When an ordinary man is thrust into the dangerous world of smuggling at America’s northern border, he is forced to risk his own freedom to protect refugees from violent immigration policing.
Soon after businessman Bob Boulé opens the Smuggler’s Inn, a quirky bed and breakfast directly on the US-Canada border, refugees, drug traffickers, and ICE agents all trust him with their secrets. The refugees tell Bob heartbreaking stories of persecution and death, leading him to question his core beliefs about right and wrong. The drug traffickers and ICE agents try to recruit Bob to their side in the dangerous game of smuggling at the border. Bob is forced to make a series of risky decisions that draw him deeper and deeper into the murky border underworld. There are car chases, drug deals between the Hells Angels and the Sinaloa cartel, and over a thousand people who slip quietly across the border to safety in Canada in the dead of night. Bob’s secret world eventually comes crashing down and he endures two stints locked up abroad. After a violent confrontation with a Border Patrol agent, Bob's case goes all the way to the US Supreme Court whose landmark decision in Egbert v. Boule paves the way for the apparent impunity of ICE agents on American streets in the second Trump presidency.
SMUGGLER by Reece Jones and Greg Boos is "a most anticipated book of 2026" according to Inkstick Media and will be published October 20, 2026 with Prometheus Press. HBO has optioned the TV and film rights for a scripted series.