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*** A Most Anticipated Book of 2026 *** - Inkstick Media
*** A Most Anticipated Book of 2026 *** - Inkstick Media
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 conservative 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.
Soon after conservative 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 will be published October 20, 2026, with Prometheus Press. HBO has optioned the TV and film rights.
SMUGGLER by Reece Jones and Greg Boos will be published October 20, 2026, with Prometheus Press. HBO has optioned the TV and film rights.
Available for preorder: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books-a-Million | Goodreads
Praise
“In Smuggler, Reece Jones and Greg Boos have crafted something rare: a page-turner of car chases, gang deals and Supreme Court battles that is also, at its heart, a penetrating, empathetic meditation on conscience, complicity, and how hard it is to do the right thing when the law and your humanity push in opposite directions. Timely, stranger-than-fiction, and impossible to put down – truly a book for our dizzying moment.”
– Greg Grandin, author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning The End of the Myth and America, América: A New History of the New World
“Smuggler is a gripping crime thriller that compels readers to keep turning the pages. But it tells a much bigger story about how the United States has morphed from a country that once opened its arms to those fleeing persecution and violence into one that now targets them, and those like Bob Boule brave enough to help.”
– Edward Alden, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations; author of The Closing of the American Border and When the World Closed Its Doors
“Smuggler is a real-life thriller that proves the adage that fact is stranger than fiction. Jones and Boos deliver a hard-edged story about one man’s survival on the longest undefended border in the world. Bob Boule and his Smuggler’s Inn provide a vivid setting for the personal, cultural, and legal struggles swirling around our so-called 'forgotten' U.S.–Canadian border. Highly recommended!”
– Margaret Stock, MacArthur Fellow and leading national security and immigration attorney
“An engrossing legal thriller. Bob Boulé's story demonstrates how the enforcement of border and immigration laws – from the front line all the way to the Supreme Court – is violent, deceptively characterizing people as criminals, threats, and unsavory beings. Smuggler explains how ICE and Border Patrol agents have incredibly wide powers and broad immunity for their brutal behavior and forces us to ask what kind of society we want to live in and what rules should govern us.”
– Jamie Chai Yun Liew, immigration lawyer, law professor, and author of Ghost Citizens and Dandelion
“Smuggler is a gripping and timely account that shatters the myth of a benign northern frontier, revealing the Canada–US border as a site of violence, impunity, and refuge. It offers an unforgettable portrait of Bob Boulé and the Smuggler's Inn, where asylum seekers, drug networks, and security agencies collide in the most ordinary of spaces. By weaving together gangland hits, confidential informant files, and midnight crossings through a Blaine backyard, the book traces Bob's deepening compassion for the refugees fleeing persecution at his door, even as the Safe Third Country regime forecloses the very pathways to protection they seek.”
– Sharry Aiken, Professor, Faculty of Law, Queen’s University, Canada
“SMUGGLER is a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story that captures all of the complexity of American border security and immigration politics. Packed with unforgettable characters, Reece Jones and Greg Boos help shine an important spotlight on the little-understood and little-covered challenges of the northern border, where some of the nation's oddest crimes have long occurred.”
– Garrett Graff, Pulitzer Prize Finalist author of Watergate: A New History
“Smuggler is a must-read true story of a larger-than-life man grappling with the moral complexities of his actions. Reece Jones and Greg Boos offer a fascinating glimpse into migration in the era of asylum and lay bare the complicated reality of border law enforcement, revealing how accountability for federal misconduct can be elusive.”
– Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, Senior Fellow, American Immigration Council
In the Media
A most anticipated book of 2026. Veteran border expert and author Reece Jones and immigration lawyer Greg Boos have teamed up for what promises to be a thrilling read. - Inkstick Media
A most anticipated book of 2026. Veteran border expert and author Reece Jones and immigration lawyer Greg Boos have teamed up for what promises to be a thrilling read. - Inkstick Media
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