Abstract: T he issue of invasive species is both enormous and important.These organisms not only have been physically dislocated to new lands from the ecosystems in which they evolved, but also, as this book avers, have infiltrated both the public psyche and most institutions in their adopted homes.That's a lot to wrap your head around, meaning a project of this magnitude would never have found its way unless a critical path forward had presented itself.It was, fortunately, a human compass that offered that direction: my friend and colleague Nicholas Mandrak at the University of Toronto.Our first chat on the subject neither hinted at the Pandora's box he was opening nor revealed what his eventual commitment to shutting it would be.In the end, many hours of what likely would have been more valuable time to him was spent graciously sharing with me his hard-won knowledge on fisheries science, aquatic biodiversity, and the ecosystems of the Great Lakes.I believe I owe him an infinite amount of beer, a debt that I live in fear he will try to collect on.At least I can blame Mandrak for the fact that Becky Cudmore, commander of the Asian Carp Program at Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), suffered similarly pesky visits.Numerous phone and office consultations with another friend, Isaac Bogoch, opened a window on geographical epidemiology and invasive vectorpathogen pairs in emerging global diseases.