THE SNAKE CHARMER: A Life and Death in Pursuit of Knowledge Author: Jamie James Publisher: Hyperion, New York 2008

I HAVE had a few close encounters of my own with snakes, principally in the Northeast Malaysian city of Kota Bahru in the early 1980s, and, long before that as a boy of tender primary school age in Singapore. The last of these was pretty tame, indeed it was with a tame cobra that a visiting Indian snake charmer brought to our hous