Review: Terrific tale of dino hunter

"Rex Appeal"
By Peter Larson and Kristin Donnan
Invisible Cities Press
Nonfiction/Science-Memoir
384 pages

(CNN) -- Peter Larson found the world's finest specimen of Tyrannosaurus rex in a South Dakota hillside and lost it in a federal courtroom. He also nearly lost his livelihood during a protracted criminal and civil legal battle that ultimately sent him to prison.

His story could have ended in bitterness and disgrace. Instead, the story continues today as he piles one paleontology triumph on top of another. His team at the Black Hills Institute has found more T. rex fossils than any other.

Now, Larson is telling his story. "Rex Appeal" centers on Larson's most spectacular discovery -- the dinosaur called Sue. But it doesn't stop -- or start -- there.

Larson details his long career as a fossil hunter, joins the argument over paleontology for profit, wanders the labyrinth of federal land-use laws and offers some scholarly observations about telling a male T. rex from a female. And he does it with a sense of adventure, wonder and -- perhaps most importantly -- irrepressible humor.

Full of excitement

Larson's co-author, Kristin Donnan, is a former magazine editor who covered the battle over Sue for the TV show "Unsolved Mysteries." During the long legal battle, she and Larson married. After he got out of prison, they divorced.

Despite that personal history, they seem to have maintained an effective professional partnership. While "Rex Appeal" is told largely from Larson's point of view, Donnan occasionally inserts herself into the narrative. The result is a literary duet that effectively keeps the story on track.

The narrative is infused with the enthusiasm of the explorer. From the start, when his friend Susan Henderson first spotted the fossil on a hillside, Larson was bubbling over with excitement about Sue.

"Even though many of Sue's bones were out of sight in a large mass of bone and rock," he writes, "we could see that most of this magnificent beast was preserved. She would become the standard-bearer for T. rex, the species cover girl -- and not just because she was nearly complete. Our preliminary measurements showed that Sue led the pack, her legs stretching a little longer, her skull winning the size contest by a nose. Susan loved it. She had found the biggest, beefiest Tyrannosaurus rex ever, and it was a she. ... I could already tell how much fun we would have with this, the world's scariest monster wearing a dress."

Loving his job

"Fun" is the operative word. Larson does nothing to glamorize the work of fossil hunting. The hours are long, the conditions brutal and the payoffs uncertain.

But he obviously loves it. He's an unrelenting cheerleader for the pursuit of knowledge. Even in prison, Larson was poring over his research and writing the book's chapter on determining a dinosaur's gender.

"Rex Appeal" is as entertaining as it is enlightening. While the chronicle of Larson's legal problems is understandably one-sided, the questions he raises about the federal laws concerning fossils are thought-provoking and worthy of further discussion. His scientific observations about T. rex are enough to keep experts debating for a decade. And his description of the joys of discovery could provoke a new generation of fossil hunters to take to the hills.