Carl Hiaasen

Carl Hiaasen is back doing what he does best: spinning a wickedly funny, fiercely pointed tale in which the greedy, the corrupt, and the degraders of pristine land in Florida--now, in the Bahamas too--get their comeuppance in mordantly ingenious, diabolically entertaining fashion.Andrew Yancy--late of the Miami Police, soon-to-be-late of the Key West Police--has a human arm in his freezer. There's a logical (Hiaasenian) explanation for that, but not for how and why it parted from its owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, his commander might relieve him of Health Inspector duties, aka Roach Patrol. But first Yancy will negotiate an ever-surprising course of events--from the Keys to Miami to a Bahamian out island--with a crew of equally ever-surprising characters, including: the twitchy widow of the frozen arm; an avariciously idiotic real estate developer; a voodoo witch whose lovers are blinded-unto-death by her particularly peculiar charms; Yancy's new love, a kinky medical examiner; and the eponymous Bad Monkey, who earns his place among Hiaasen's greatest characters with hilariously wicked aplomb. 

Meet twenty-two-year-old Cherry Pye (née Cheryl Bunterman), a pop star since she was fourteen—and about to attempt a comeback from her latest drug-and-alcohol disaster. Now meet Cherry again: in the person of her “undercover stunt double,” Ann DeLusia. Ann portrays Cherry whenever the singer is too “indisposed”—meaning wasted—to go out in public. And it is Ann-mistaken-for-Cherry who is kidnapped from a South Beach hotel by obsessed paparazzo Bang Abbott.Now the challenge for Cherry’s handlers (über–stage mother; horndog record producer; nipped, tucked, and Botoxed twin publicists; weed whacker–wielding bodyguard) is to rescue Ann while keeping her existence a secret from Cherry’s public—and from Cherry herself.The situation is more complicated than they know. Ann has had a bewitching encounter with Skink—the unhinged former governor of Florida living wild in a mangrove swamp—and now he’s heading for Miami to find her . . .Will Bang Abbott achieve his fantasy of a lucrative private photo session with Cherry Pye? Will Cherry sober up in time to lip-synch her way through her concert tour? Will Skink track down Ann DeLusia before Cherry’s motley posse does?All will be revealed in this hilarious spin on life in the celebrity fast lane.

Honey Santana—impassioned, willful, possibly bipolar, self-proclaimed “queen of lost causes”—has a scheme to help rid the world of irresponsibility, indifference, and dinnertime sales calls. She’s taking rude, gullible Relentless, Inc., telemarketer Boyd Shreave and his less-than-enthusiastic mistress, Eugenie—the fifteen-minute-famous girlfriend of a tabloid murderer—into the wilderness of Florida’s Ten Thousand Islands for a gentle lesson in civility. What she doesn’t know is that she’s being followed by her Honey-obsessed former employer, Piejack (whose mismatched fingers are proof that sexual harassment in the workplace is a bad idea). And he doesn’t know he’s being followed by Honey’s still-smitten former drug-running ex-husband, Perry, and their wise-and-protective-way-beyond-his-years twelve-year-old-son, Fry. And when they all pull up on Dismal Key, they don’t know they’re intruding on Sammy Tigertail, a half white–half Seminole failed alligator wrestler, trying like hell to be a hermit despite the Florida State coed who’s dying to be his hostage . . .         Will Honey be able to make a mensch of a “greedhead”? Will Fry be able to protect her from Piejack—and herself? Will Sammy achieve his true Seminole self? Will Eugenie ever get to the beach? Will the Everglades survive the wild humans? All the answers are revealed in the delectably outrageous mayhem that propels this novel to its Hiaasen-of-the-highest-order climax.

An alternate cover for this ASIN can be found here. Wahoo Cray lives in a zoo. His father is an animal wrangler, so he's grown up with all manner of gators, snakes, parrots, rats, monkeys, snappers, and more in his backyard. The critters he can handle. His father is the unpredictable one. When his dad takes a job with a reality TV show called "Expedition Survival!", Wahoo figures he'll have to do a bit of wrangling himself—to keep his dad from killing Derek Badger, the show's boneheaded star, before the shoot is over. But the job keeps getting more complicated. Derek Badger seems to actually believe his PR and insists on using wild animals for his stunts. And Wahoo's acquired a shadow named Tuna—a girl who's sporting a shiner courtesy of her old man and needs a place to hide out. They've only been on location in the Everglades for a day before Derek gets bitten by a bat and goes missing in a storm. Search parties head out and promptly get lost themselves. And then Tuna's dad shows up with a gun . . . It's anyone's guess who will actually survive "Expedition Survival". . . .

The new full-tilt, razor-sharp, unstoppably hilarious and entertaining novel from the best-selling author of Bad Monkey, Star Island, Nature Girl, et al. When Lane Coolman's car is bashed from behind on the road to the Florida Keys, what appears to be an ordinary accident is anything but (this is Hiaasen!). Behind the wheel of the other car is Merry Mansfield--the eponymous Razor Girl--and the crash scam is only the beginning of events that spiral crazily out of control while unleashing some of the wildest characters Hiaasen has ever set loose on the page. There's Trebeaux, the owner of Sedimental Journeys--a company that steals sand from one beach to restore erosion on another . . . Dominick "Big Noogie" Aeola, a NYC mafia capo with a taste for tropic-wear . . . Buck Nance, a Wisconsin accordionist who has rebranded himself as the star of a redneck reality show called Bayou Brethren . . . a street psycho known as Blister who's more Buck Nance than Buck could ever be . . . Brock Richardson, a Miami product-liability lawyer who's getting dangerously--and deformingly--hooked on the very E.D. product he's litigating against . . . and Andrew Yancy--formerly Detective Yancy, busted down to the Key West roach patrol after accosting his then-lover's husband with a Dust Buster. Yancy believes that if he can singlehandedly solve a high-profile murder, he'll get his detective badge back. That the Razor Girl may be the key to Yancy's future will be as surprising as anything else he encounters along the way--including the giant Gambian rats that are livening up his restaurant inspections.

Unfortunately, Roy’s first acquaintance in Florida is Dana Matherson, a well-known bully. Then again, if Dana hadn’t been sinking his thumbs into Roy’s temples and mashing his face against the school-bus window, Roy might never have spotted the running boy. And the running boy is he was running away from the school bus, carried no books, and–here’s the odd part–wore no shoes. Sensing a mystery, Roy sets himself on the boy’s trail. The chase introduces him to potty-trained alligators, a fake-fart champion, some burrowing owls, a renegade eco-avenger, and several extremely poisonous snakes with unnaturally sparkling tails. Roy has most definitely arrived in Carl Hiaasen’s Florida. From the Hardcover edition.

Carl Hiaasen serves up his unique brand of swamp justice in the New York Times bestseller Skink—No Surrender.   A National Book Award Longlist Selection  When your cousin goes missing under suspicious circumstances, who do you call? There’s only one man for the job: a half-crazed, half-feral, one-eyed ex-governor named Skink. Skink joins 14-year-old Richard on a breakneck chase across Florida, undaunted by lightning storms, poisonous snakes, flying bullets, and giant gators. There are a million places cousin Malley could be, a million unpleasant fates that might have befallen her, but one thing is certain: in the Florida swamp, justice is best served wild.

When the precious blue-tongued mango voles at the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills on North Key Largo are stolen by heartless, ruthless thugs, Joe Winder wants to uncover why, and find the voles. Joe is lately a PR man for the Amazing Kingdom theme park, but now that the voles are gone, Winder is dragged along in their wake through a series of weird and lethal events that begin with the sleazy real-estate agent/villain Francis X. Kingsbury and can end only one way....

Once a hotshot investigative reporter, Jack Tagger now bangs out obituaries for a South Florida daily, "plotting to resurrect my career by yoking my byline to some famous stiff." Jimmy Stoma, the infamous front man of Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, dead in a fishy-smelling scuba "accident" may be just the stiff Jack needs-if only he can figure out what happened. Standing in the way are [among others] an editor who wants Jack to "break her cherry," Stoma's ambitious pop-singer widow, and the soulless, profit-hungry newspaper owner Jack once publicly humiliated. As clues from Stoma's music give Jack Tagger the chance to trade obits for a story that could hit the front page, murder gives his career a new lease on life.

No matter what you heard or thought about the movie version of Strip Tease, forget it. Film simply can't catch the layers of humor, satire, and imagination that author Carl Hiaasen creates in each of his novels. When a deranged Florida congressman falls for a gorgeous but virtuous stripper, he dedicates himself to pursuing this tasselled princess. Not only is she a real beauty, she's a damsel in distress. The effects of his quest will ripple through the spotlights of the strip joint, the sugar cane fields of south Florida, and some powerful political careers. Fueled by innocent lust and dizzy miscalculations, this story will keep you howling with surprise. George Wilson's colorful narration is the perfect vehicle for Carl Hiaasen's twisted fairy tale.

Wrecker needs to deal with smugglers, grave robbers, and pooping iguanas—just as soon as he finishes Zoom school. Welcome to another wild adventure in Carl Hiaasen's Florida! Valdez Jones VIII calls himself Wrecker because his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather salvaged shipwrecks for a living. So is it destiny, irony, or just bad luck when Wrecker comes across a speedboat that has run hard aground on a sand flat? The men in the boat don't want Wrecker to call for help—in fact, they'll pay him to forget he ever saw them. Wrecker would be happy to forget, but he keeps seeing these men all over Key West—at the marina, even in the cemetery. And now they want more than his silence—they want a lookout. He'll have to dive deep into their shady dealings to figure out a way to escape this tangled net. . . .

Some facts about Billy Dickens: * He once saw a biker swerve across the road in order to run over a snake. * Later, that motorcycle somehow ended up at the bottom of a canal. * Billy isn't the type to let things go. Some facts about Billy's family: * They've lived in six different Florida towns because Billy's mom always insists on getting a house near a bald eagle nest. * Billy's older sister is dating a jerk. It's a mystery. * Billy's dad left when he was four, and Billy knows almost nothing about him. * Billy has just found his dad's address--in Montana. This summer, Billy will fly across the country, hike a mountain, float a river, dodge a grizzly bear, shoot down a spy drone, save a neighbor's cat, save an endangered panther, and then try to save his own father.

"An explosive read...authentic, compelling and frightening". -- Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionArchitect Chris Meadows has the bad luck to see an old girlfriend get hit by a car full of drugland hitmen. He has the worse luck to see the face of her murderers. Because in a town as violent as Miami, a witness doesn't stand a chance -- especially when the cops who ought to be protecting him are more interested in dangling him as live bait.

Virtually unnoticed, JoLayne Lucks stops by the Grab'n'Go to play the same numbers she's played every week for five years. Each lotto number marking the age at which she dumped a tiresome lover. She doesn't know it yet, but the discarded men in JoLayne's life have finally amounted to something.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Hysterically funny...Hiaasen at his satirical best." - USA Today Two honeymooners wake up early, make love twice, and brace themselves for a spectacle they won't be watching from the sidelines. A seductive con artiste stumbles into a scam that promises more cool cash than the lottery. A shotgun-toting mobile home salesman is about to close a deal with disaster. A law school dropout will be chasing one Gaboon viper, a troop of storm-shocked monkeys, and a newfound love life, while tourists by the thousands bail from the Florida Keys. We're now entering the hurricane zone, where hell and hilarity rule. And in the hands of the masterful, merciless Carl Hiaasen, we're going to have some weather.

R.J. Decker, star tenant of the local trailer park and neophyte private eye is fishing for a killer. Thanks to a sportsman's scam that's anything but sportsmanlike, there's a body floating in Coon Bog, Florida -- and a lot that's rotten in the murky waters of big-stakes, large-mouth bass tournaments. Here Decker will team up with a half-blind, half-mad hermit with an appetite for road kill; dare to kiss his ex-wife while she's in bed with her new husband; and face deadly TV evangelists, dangerously seductive women, and a pistol-toting redneck with a pit bull on his arm. And here his own life becomes part of the stakes. For while the "double whammy" is the lure, first prize is for the most ingenious murder.

New York Times bestselling author Carl Hiaasen serves up a humorous helping of "taut, fast-paced action...crisp and hot" After dispatching a pistol-packing intruder from his home with the help of a stuffed Marlin head, Mick Stranahan can't deny that someone is out to get him. His now-deceased intruder carries no I.D., and as a former Florida state investigator, Stranahan knows there are plenty of potential culprits. His long list of enemies includes an off point hit man, a personal injury lawyer of billboard fame, a notoriously irritating TV journalist, and a fumbling plastic surgeon. Now, if he wants to keep fishing into his golden years, Stranahan has no choice but to come out of retirement to close this one last case...

Mrs Bunny Starch, the most feared biology teacher ever, is missing. She disappeared after a school field trip to Black Vine Swamp. And, to be honest, the kids in her class are relieved. But when the principal claims Mrs. Starch has gone on a "family emergency," Nick and Marta don't buy it. They guess that delinquent Smoke plays a part in her disappearance. And he does. But not in the way they think. More is going on in Black Vine Swamp than any one player in this twisted tale can see. Nick and Marta will have to reckon with an eccentric eco-avenger, a stuffed rat named Chelsea, a wannabe Texas oilman, a singing substitute teacher, and a ticked-off Florida panther, before they really begin to see the big picture.

The only trace of the first victim was his Shriner's fez washed up on the Miami beach. The second victim, the head of the city's chamber of commerce, was found dead with a toy rubber alligator lodged in his throat. And that was just the beginning... Now Brian Keyes, reporter turned private eye, must move from muckraking to rooting out murder, in a caper that will mix football players, politicians, and police with a group of fanatics and a very hungry crocodile.

Independently wealthy eco-terrorist Twilly Spree teaches a flagrant litterbug a lesson--and leaves the offender's precious Range Rover swarming with hungry dung beetles. When he discovers the litterer is one of the most powerful political fixers in Florida, the real Hiaasen-style fun begins.

Take a romp in the swamp with this New York Times bestselling mystery adventure set in the Florida Keys from Newbery Honoree Carl Hiaasen! Noah's dad is sure that the owner of the Coral Queen casino boat is flushing raw sewage into the harbor--which has made taking a dip at the local beach like swimming in a toilet. He can't prove it though, and so he decides that sinking the boat will make an effective statement. Right. The boat is pumped out and back in business within days and Noah's dad is in the local lock-up. Now Noah is determined to succeed where his dad failed. He will prove that the Coral Queen is dumping illegally . . . somehow.

Marine biologist Chaz Perrone can't tell a sea horse from a sawhorse. And when he throws his beautiful wife, Joey, off a cruise liner, he really should know better. An expert swimmer, Joey makes her way to a floating bale of Jamaican pot-and then to an island inhabited by an ex-cop named Mick Stranahan, whose ex-wives include five waitresses and a TV producer. Now Joey wants to get revenge on Chaz and Mick's happy to help her.But in swampy South Florida, separating lies from truths and stupidity from brilliance isn't easy. Especially when you're after a guy like Chaz-who's bad at murder, great at fraud, and just terrible at getting caught...

From the best-selling author of Skinny Dip and Razor Girl, a new novel that captures the Trump era with Hiaasen's inimitable savage humor and wonderful, eccentric characters. A surefire best seller. Carl Hiaasen's Squeeze Me is set among the landed gentry of Palm Beach. A prominent high-society matron--who happens to be a fierce supporter of the President and founding member of the POTUSSIES--has gone missing at a swank gala. When the wealthy dowager Kiki Pew Fitzsimmons is later found dead in a concrete grave, panic and chaos erupt. The President immediately declares that Kiki Pew was the victim of rampaging immigrant hordes. This, as it turns out, is far from the truth. Meanwhile, a bizarre discovery in the middle of the road brings the First Lady's motorcade to a grinding halt (followed by some grinding between the First Lady and a lovestruck Secret Service agent). Enter Angie Armstrong, wildlife wrangler extraordinaire, who arrives at her own conclusions after she is summoned to the posh island to deal with a mysterious and impolite influx of huge, hungry pythons . . . Completely of the moment, full of vim and vigor, and as irreverent as can be, Squeeze Me is pure, unadulterated Hiaasen.

This is Oh, the Places You’ll Never Go–the ultimate hilarious, cynical, but absolutely realistic view of a college graduate’s future. And what he or she can or can’t do about it. “This commencement address will never be given, because graduation speakers are supposed to offer encouragement and inspiration. That’s not what you need. You need a warning.” So begins Carl Hiaasen’s attempt to prepare young men and women for their future. And who better to warn them about their precarious paths forward than Carl Hiaasen? The answer, after reading Assume the Worst, is: Nobody. And who better to illustrate–and with those illustrations, expand upon and cement Hiaasen’s cynical point of view–than Roz Chast, best-selling author/illustrator and National Book Award winner? The answer again is easy: Nobody. Following the format of Anna Quindlen’s commencement address (Being Perfect) and George Saunders’s commencement address (Congratulations, by the way), the collaboration of Hiaasen and Chast might look typical from the outside, but inside it is anything but. This book is bound to be a classic, sold year after year come graduation time. Although it’s also a good gift for anyone starting a job, getting married, or recently released from prison. Because it is not just funny. It is, in its own Hiaasen way, extremely wise and even hopeful. Well, it might not be full of hope, but there are certainly enough slivers of the stuff in there to more than keep us all going.