Carl Hiaasen Books In Order

Black Lizard Books In Publication Order

  1. Powder Burn (1981)
  2. Trap Line (1982)
  3. A Death in China (1984)
  4. The Sinners of San Ramon (1989)

Skink Books In Publication Order

  1. Double Whammy (1987)
  2. Native Tongue (1991)
  3. Stormy Weather (1995)
  4. Sick Puppy (2000)
  5. Skinny Dip (2004)
  6. Star Island (2010)
  7. Skink–No Surrender (2014)

Mick Stranahan Books In Publication Order

  1. Skin Tight (1989)
  2. Skinny Dip (2004)

Juvenile Books In Publication Order

  1. Hoot (2002)
  2. Flush (2005)
  3. Scat (2009)
  4. Chomp (2012)
  5. Squirm (2018)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. Tourist Season (1986)
  2. Strip Tease (1993)
  3. Lucky You (1997)
  4. Basket Case (2002)
  5. Nature Girl (2006)
  6. Bad Monkey (2013)
  7. Razor Girl (2016)
  8. Squeeze Me (2020)

Picture Books In Publication Order

  1. The Edible Exile (2013)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. Team Rodent : How Disney Devours the World (1998)
  2. Kick Ass: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen (1999)
  3. Paradise Screwed: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen (2001)
  4. The Downhill Lie / Fairway to Hell (2008)
  5. Dance of the Reptiles (2014)
  6. Assume the Worst (2018)

Anthologies In Publication Order

  1. Naked Came the Manatee (1997)
  2. The Best American Mystery Stories 2007 (2007)

Black Lizard Book Covers

Skink Book Covers

Mick Stranahan Book Covers

Juvenile Book Covers

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Picture Book Covers

Non-Fiction Book Covers

Anthologies Book Covers

Carl Hiaasen Books Overview

Powder Burn

Architect 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.

Trap Line

Key West is a smuggler’s paradise. All that’s needed are the captains to run the contraband and Breeze Albury is one of the best fishing captains on the Rock. He’s in no mood to become the Machine’s delivery boy, however. So the Machine sets out to persuade him. It starts by taking away Albury’s livelihood and his freedom. But when the Machine threatens Albury’s son, the washed out wharf rat turns into a raging, sea going vigilante.

A Death in China

Key West is a smuggler’s paradise. All that’s needed are the captains to run the contraband and Breeze Albury is one of the best fishing captains on the Rock. He’s in no mood to become the Machine’s delivery boy, however. So the Machine sets out to persuade him. It starts by taking away Albury’s livelihood and his freedom. But when the Machine threatens Albury’s son, the washed out wharf rat turns into a raging, sea going vigilante.

Double Whammy

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’s 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.

Native Tongue

‘Ruthlessly wicked…
Wonderful…
His best book yet.’ATLANTA JOURNAL & CONSTITUTIONWhen the precious clue 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…
. From the Paperback edition.

Stormy Weather

A hilarious new novel of greed and corruption from the bestselling author of Strip Tease. The story focuses on southern Florida at the height of the tourist season, when a ferocious hurricane hits luring con artists, carpetbaggers, and would be saviours like hyenas to the lion’s kill. ‘Hiaasen hilself is a one man force of nature’. Variety. Major advertising, including key city radio and print ads in The New York Times Book Review and Miami Herald.

Sick Puppy

Sick Puppy: When Palmer Stoat notices the pickup truck following hime on the highway, he fears he will be carjacked. But Twilly Spree, the man tailing Stoat, has vengeance on his mind. Twilly has dedicated himself to saving Florida’s wilderness. He favors unanimous political statements, such as torching Jet Skis or blowing up banks. After watching Stoat dump a trail of fast food litter out the window, Twilly decides to teach him a lesson. And when Twilly discovers that Stoat is one of Florida’s cockiest political fixers, whose latest project is the ‘malling’ of a pristine Gulf Coast island, the real fun begins…
‘ ‘ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Carl Hiaasen was born and raised in Florida. He is the author of seven previous novels, including Native Tongue, Strip Tease, Stormy Weather and Lucky You. He also writes a twice weekly metropolitan column for the Miami Herald. ‘Carl Hiaasen once again produces a devilishly funny caper. In Sick Puppy, he shows himself to be a comic writer at the peak of his powers.’ Publishers Weekly ‘Hiaasen has done it again with this wacky, wonderful, and deadly serious novel of dirty politics, big businesses running amuck, and their potential impact on Florida’s fragile ecosystem…
Essential.’ Library Journal starred review ‘Playing time 10 hrs 9 min approx., Copyright 1999 by Carl Hiaasen, Recorded by arrangement with Random House Audio Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., Copyright P 2000 by Chivers North America’ ‘To make a convenient break in the program, recorded sides may be of unequal length. Please spool to the end of the tape before playing the other side. This recording has been digitally mastered for the best possible sound quality. Recorded at Gizmo Inc., New York City, Complete & Unabridged 8 Cassettes, Read by Nick Sullivan.’ from case

Skinny Dip

Chaz Perrone might be the only marine scientist in the world who doesn t know which way the Gulf Stream runs. He might also be the only one who went into biology just to make a killing, and now he’s found a way doctoring water samples so that a ruthless agribusiness tycoon can continue illegally dumping fertilizer into the endangered Everglades. When Chaz suspects that his wife, Joey, has figured out his scam, he pushes her overboard from a cruise liner into the night dark Atlantic. Unfortunately for Chaz, his wife doesn t die in the fall. Clinging blindly to a bale of Jamaican pot, Joey Perrone is plucked from the ocean by former cop and current loner Mick Stranahan. Instead of rushing to the police and reporting her husband s crime, Joey decides to stay dead and with Mick s help screw with Chaz until he screws himself. As Joey haunts and taunts her homicidal husband, as Chaz s cold blooded cohorts in pollution grow uneasy about his ineptitude and increasingly erratic behavior, as Mick Stranahan discovers that six failed marriages and years of island solitude haven t killed the reckless romantic in him, we re taken on a hilarious, full throttle, pure Hiaasen ride through the warped politics and mayhem of the human environment, and the human heart. From the Hardcover edition.

Star Island

Meet twenty two year old Cherry Pye n e 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 ber 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. From the Hardcover edition.

Skin Tight

Somebody wants Mick Stranahan dead. Mick is sure of this, because he just had to dispatch a pistol packing intruder with the help of a stuffed marlin head. But who would want to hurt a former Florida state investigator? The answer is plenty of peopleas Stranahan soon finds himself acquainted with a litter of nefarious players, including a hit man whose skin problems could fill a comprehensive if bizarre medical textbook, a lawyer of questionable repute who advertises on billboards, and a TV show host whose taste for sensationalism is exceeded only by his vanity. The whole thing gets downright harrowing for the ex cop in one of Hiaasen’s most breathtaking, madcap romps everwhere even a plastic surgeon with extremely shaky hands waits to wring Stranahan’s neck…
.

Hoot

Bestselling novelist Carl Hiaasen is back with another hysterical mystery adventure for young readers, set in the Florida Keys. Noah’s dad has a little problem with anger control. He tried to stop the Coral Queen casino boat’s illegal dumping…
by sinking the boat. But his bold protest fizzles: within days the casino is back in business, and Noah’s dad is behind bars and out of action. Now Noah is determined to succeed where his father failed. But even though pumping raw sewage into the waters of the Florida Keys is both gross and against the law, turns out it’s near impossible to catch the flusher especially when he’s already bamboozled the prosecutors, the local press, and even the Coast Guard. But Noah’s got a few allies. There’s his little sister, Abbey, an unreformed childhood biter; Lice Peeking, a half soused ex mate of the Coral Queen who is willing to testify…
for a price; and Shelly, a bighearted bartender with even bigger biceps. Okay, so the odds aren’t good. But Noah has an ace up his sleeve a plan so crazy it just might stop the polluting, save the beaches, and prove to the world that it’s the owner of the Coral Queen, and not his dad, who is full of…
crud.

Flush

Bestselling novelist Carl Hiaasen is back with another hysterical mystery adventure for young readers, set in the Florida Keys. Noah’s dad has a little problem with anger control. He tried to stop the Coral Queen casino boat’s illegal dumping…
by sinking the boat. But his bold protest fizzles: within days the casino is back in business, and Noah’s dad is behind bars and out of action. Now Noah is determined to succeed where his father failed. But even though pumping raw sewage into the waters of the Florida Keys is both gross and against the law, turns out it’s near impossible to catch the Flusher especially when he’s already bamboozled the prosecutors, the local press, and even the Coast Guard. But Noah’s got a few allies. There’s his little sister, Abbey, an unreformed childhood biter; Lice Peeking, a half soused ex mate of the Coral Queen who is willing to testify…
for a price; and Shelly, a bighearted bartender with even bigger biceps. Okay, so the odds aren’t good. But Noah has an ace up his sleeve a plan so crazy it just might stop the polluting, save the beaches, and prove to the world that it’s the owner of the Coral Queen, and not his dad, who is full of…
crud.

Scat

Bestselling author and columnist Carl Hiaasen returns with another hysterical mystery for kids set in Florida’s Everglades. 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 tries to tell the students that Mrs. Starch has been called away on a ‘family emergency,’ Nick and Marta just don’t buy it. No, they figure the class delinquent, Smoke, has something to do with her disappearance. And he does! But not in the way they think. There’s a lot more going on in Black Vine Swamp than any one player in this twisted tale can see. And 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. That’s life in the swamp, kids. From the Hardcover edition.

Chomp

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’…
.

Squirm

Hardcover, Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers

Tourist Season

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 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 anti development fanatics and a very, hungry crocodile

Strip Tease

2 cassettes / 3 hoursRead by Ed AsnerGrange, Florida, is famous for its miracles the weeping fiberglass Madonna, the Road Stain Jesus, the stigmata man. And now it has JoLayne Lucks, unlikely winner of the state lottery. Unfortunately, JoLayne’s winning ticket isn’t the only one. The other belongs to Bodean Gazzer and his raunchy sidekick, Chub, who believe they’re entitled to the whole $28 million jackpot. And they need it quickly, to start their own underground militia before NATO troops invade America. But JoLayne Lucks has her own plans for the Lotto money an Eden like forest in Grange must be saved from strip malling. When Bode and Chub brutally assault her and steal her ticket, JoLayne vows to track them down, take it back and get revenge. The only one who can help is Tom Krome, a big city investigative journalist now bitterly consigned to writing frothy features for a midsized central Florida newspaper. With a persuasive nudge from JoLayne, Krome is about to become part of a story that’s bigger and more bizarre than anything he’s ever covered. Chasing two heavily armed psychopaths down the coast of Florida is reckless enough, but Tom’s got other problems the murderous attention of a jealous judge; an actress wife who turns fugitive to avoid divorce court; an editor who speaks in tongues; and Tom’s own growing fondness for the future millionairess with whom he’s risking his neck. The pursuit takes them from the surreal streets of Grange to a buzzard infested island deep in Florida Bay, where they finally catch up with the fledgling militia Chub, Bode Gazzer, a newly recruited convenience store clerk and their baffled hostage, a Hooters waitress. The climax explodes with the hilarious mayhem that is Carl Hiaasen’s hallmark. Lucky You is his funniest, most deliriously gripping novel yet.

Lucky You

2 cassettes / 3 hoursRead by Ed AsnerGrange, Florida, is famous for its miracles the weeping fiberglass Madonna, the Road Stain Jesus, the stigmata man. And now it has JoLayne Lucks, unlikely winner of the state lottery. Unfortunately, JoLayne’s winning ticket isn’t the only one. The other belongs to Bodean Gazzer and his raunchy sidekick, Chub, who believe they’re entitled to the whole $28 million jackpot. And they need it quickly, to start their own underground militia before NATO troops invade America. But JoLayne Lucks has her own plans for the Lotto money an Eden like forest in Grange must be saved from strip malling. When Bode and Chub brutally assault her and steal her ticket, JoLayne vows to track them down, take it back and get revenge. The only one who can help is Tom Krome, a big city investigative journalist now bitterly consigned to writing frothy features for a midsized central Florida newspaper. With a persuasive nudge from JoLayne, Krome is about to become part of a story that’s bigger and more bizarre than anything he’s ever covered. Chasing two heavily armed psychopaths down the coast of Florida is reckless enough, but Tom’s got other problems the murderous attention of a jealous judge; an actress wife who turns fugitive to avoid divorce court; an editor who speaks in tongues; and Tom’s own growing fondness for the future millionairess with whom he’s risking his neck. The pursuit takes them from the surreal streets of Grange to a buzzard infested island deep in Florida Bay, where they finally catch up with the fledgling militia Chub, Bode Gazzer, a newly recruited convenience store clerk and their baffled hostage, a Hooters waitress. The climax explodes with the hilarious mayhem that is Carl Hiaasen’s hallmark. Lucky You is his funniest, most deliriously gripping novel yet.

Basket Case

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. From the Hardcover edition.

Nature Girl

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. From the Hardcover edition.

Team Rodent : How Disney Devours the World

‘Disney is so good at being good that it manifests an evil; so uniformly efficient and courteous, so dependably clean and conscientious, so unfailingly entertaining that it’s unreal, and therefore is an agent of pure wickedness…
. Disney isn’t in the business of exploiting Nature so much as striving to improve upon it, constantly fine tuning God’s work.’ from TEAM RODENTTEAM RODENTHow Disney Devours America’Revulsion is good. Revulsion is healthy. Each of us has limits, unarticulated boundaries of taste and tolerance, and sometimes we forget where they are. Peep Land is here to remind us; a fixed compass point by which we can govern our private behavior. Because being grossed out is essential to the human experience; without a perceived depravity, we’d have nothing against which to gauge the advance or decline of culture; our art, our music, our cinema, our books. Without sleaze, the yardstick shrinks at both ends. Team Rodent doesn’t believe in sleaze, however, nor in old fashioned revulsion. Square in the middle is where it wants us all to be, dependable consumers with predictable attitudes. The message, never stated but avuncularly implied, is that America’s values ought to reflect those of the Walt Disney Company, and not the other way around.’

Kick Ass: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen

‘Disney is so good at being good that it manifests an evil; so uniformly efficient and courteous, so dependably clean and conscientious, so unfailingly entertaining that it’s unreal, and therefore is an agent of pure wickedness…
. Disney isn’t in the business of exploiting Nature so much as striving to improve upon it, constantly fine tuning God’s work.’ from TEAM RODENTTEAM RODENTHow Disney Devours America’Revulsion is good. Revulsion is healthy. Each of us has limits, unarticulated boundaries of taste and tolerance, and sometimes we forget where they are. Peep Land is here to remind us; a fixed compass point by which we can govern our private behavior. Because being grossed out is essential to the human experience; without a perceived depravity, we’d have nothing against which to gauge the advance or decline of culture; our art, our music, our cinema, our books. Without sleaze, the yardstick shrinks at both ends. Team Rodent doesn’t believe in sleaze, however, nor in old fashioned revulsion. Square in the middle is where it wants us all to be, dependable consumers with predictable attitudes. The message, never stated but avuncularly implied, is that America’s values ought to reflect those of the Walt Disney Company, and not the other way around.’

Paradise Screwed: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen

Ever wonder how to retrieve a sunken golf cart from a snake infested lake? Or which club in your bag is best suited for combat against a horde of rats? If these and other sporting questions are gnawing at you, The Downhill Lie, Carl Hiaasen’s hilarious confessional about returning to the fairways after a thirty two year absence, is definitely the book for you. Originally drawn to the game by his father, Carl wisely quit golfing in 1973, when Richard Nixon was hunkered down like a meth crazed badger in the White House, Hank Aaron was one dinger shy of Babe Ruth s all time home run record, and The Who had just released Quadrophenia. But some ambitions refuse to die, and as the years and memories of shanked 7 irons faded, it dawned on Carl that there might be one thing in life he could do better in middle age than he could as a youth. So gradually he ventured back to the dreaded driving range, this time as the father of a five year old son and also as a grandfather. What possesses a man to return in midlife to a game at which he d never excelled in his prime, and which in fact had dealt him mostly failure, angst and exasperation? Here s why I did it: I m one sick bast*ard. And thus we have Carl s foray into a world of baffling titanium technology, high priced golf gurus, bizarre infomercial gimmicks and the mind bending phenomenon of Tiger Woods; a maddening universe of hooks and slices where Carl ultimately and foolishly agrees to compete in a country club tournament against players who can actually hit the ball. That s the secret of the sport s infernal seduction, he writes. It surrenders just enough good shots to let you talk yourself out of quitting. Hiaasen s chronicle of his shaky return to this bedeviling pastime and the ensuing demolition of his self esteem culminating with the savage 45 hole tournament will have you rolling with laughter. Yet the bittersweet memories of playing with his own father and the glow he feels when watching his own young son belt the ball down the fairway will also touch your heart. Forget Tiger, Phil and Ernie. If you want to understand the true lure of golf, turn to Carl Hiaasen, who has written an extraordinary book for the ordinary hacker.

The Downhill Lie / Fairway to Hell

Ever wonder how to retrieve a sunken golf cart from a snake infested lake? Or which club in your bag is best suited for combat against a horde of rats? If these and other sporting questions are gnawing at you, The Downhill Lie, Carl Hiaasen’s hilarious confessional about returning to the fairways after a thirty two year absence, is definitely the book for you. Originally drawn to the game by his father, Carl wisely quit golfing in 1973, when Richard Nixon was hunkered down like a meth crazed badger in the White House, Hank Aaron was one dinger shy of Babe Ruth s all time home run record, and The Who had just released Quadrophenia. But some ambitions refuse to die, and as the years and memories of shanked 7 irons faded, it dawned on Carl that there might be one thing in life he could do better in middle age than he could as a youth. So gradually he ventured back to the dreaded driving range, this time as the father of a five year old son and also as a grandfather. What possesses a man to return in midlife to a game at which he d never excelled in his prime, and which in fact had dealt him mostly failure, angst and exasperation? Here s why I did it: I m one sick bast*ard. And thus we have Carl s foray into a world of baffling titanium technology, high priced golf gurus, bizarre infomercial gimmicks and the mind bending phenomenon of Tiger Woods; a maddening universe of hooks and slices where Carl ultimately and foolishly agrees to compete in a country club tournament against players who can actually hit the ball. That s the secret of the sport s infernal seduction, he writes. It surrenders just enough good shots to let you talk yourself out of quitting. Hiaasen s chronicle of his shaky return to this bedeviling pastime and the ensuing demolition of his self esteem culminating with the savage 45 hole tournament will have you rolling with laughter. Yet the bittersweet memories of playing with his own father and the glow he feels when watching his own young son belt the ball down the fairway will also touch your heart. Forget Tiger, Phil and Ernie. If you want to understand the true lure of golf, turn to Carl Hiaasen, who has written an extraordinary book for the ordinary hacker.

Naked Came the Manatee

In South Florida, everyone wants to get a head. But not just any head. A very famous human head severed and snugged away in a cryonic container. A head that could spark a revolution and change the course of history. Everybody wants a piece of the noggin: rotund gangster Big Joey G., a 102 year old environmentalist, hard boiled Miami reporter Britt Montero, lawyer Jake Lassiter, and a would be dictator in exile with ex president Jimmy Carter and a lovable manatee named Booger thrown in for good measure. With bodies piling up it’s anybody’s guess what will happen from one chapter to the next, as an all star line up of Florida’s finest writers take turns at taking this outrageously original novel to the limit and beyond.

The Best American Mystery Stories 2007

The best selling author Carl Hiaasen takes the reins for the eleventh edition of this series, featuring twenty of the past year’s most distinguished tales of mystery, crime, and suspense. Laura Lippman introduces us to a suburban soccer mom who moonlights as a call girl and who has a fateful encounter with a former client at her son s soccer game. Ridley Pearson traces a famous author of horror tales who becomes trapped in a real one after his wife vanishes while jogging. Joyce Carol Oates travels to a New Jersey racetrack where the animals that break down are of the two legged type. Lawrence Block tells the story of Keller, a hitman for hire who happens to live in Greenwich Village, loves spicy food, and collects stamps as a hobby. And Scott Wolven plunges us into the world of an ex con who takes a job at a private and very illegal Nevada racetrack where each day millions are won and lost. Mostly lost. As Carl Hiaasen notes in his introduction, The stories in this collection would do honor to any anthology of short literature. More than transcending the genre of crime, they blow away its nebulous boundaries. The Best American Mystery Stories 2007 is a powerful collection certain to delight mystery aficionados and all lovers of great fiction.

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