cover image You Can Get Arrested for That: 2 Guys, 25 Dumb Laws, 1 Absurd American Crime Spree

You Can Get Arrested for That: 2 Guys, 25 Dumb Laws, 1 Absurd American Crime Spree

Rich Smith. Three Rivers Press (CA), $13.95 (243pp) ISBN 978-0-307-33942-3

The premise is solid enough: Smith, a 20-something journalism student in England, asks a buddy, Luke Bateman, to travel across the U.S. with him over the course of a summer, with the goal of trying to break more than two-dozen archaic laws along the way-without getting caught, of course, and while documenting the adventures. The execution is less than captivating: it is illegal to ride a bike in a swimming pool in the Los Angeles suburb of Baldwin Park; they do. In Globe, Ariz., it is illegal to play cards against a Native American; they do. (Actually, Smith does, and Bateman photographs.) Smith seemingly picks the laws at random, with little explanation or research into their backgrounds. So when the two men fish in their pajamas in Chicago, or drink beer out of a bucket on a St. Louis sidewalk, it reads like little more than a prank TV vignette. There's some cheek (as in a trip to Hooters) but too much British reserve: one doesn't come away with a strong sense of Smith and Bateman's friendship, or how the long months in a car together affect their relationship.