Friday Fiction: Carl Hiaasen

--by Hanje Richards

Carl Hiaasen (born March 12, 1953) is an American journalist, columnist and novelist. He was a reporter for (Cocoa, Florida) for two years beginning in 1974, then was hired by the Miami Herald in 1976, where he still Cocoa Today works. In 1979, he switched to investigative journalism, initially focusing on property development and the construction industry, exposing schemes to despoil the natural beauty of Florida for profit; several of his novels have plots based on such themes. He began writing a regular column in 1985 – initially three times a week, but after the success of his novels, he cut back to weekly.

Hiaasen's fiction mirrors his concerns as a journalist and Floridian. His novels have been classified as "environmental thrillers" and are usually found on the mystery shelves in bookshops, although they can just as well be read as mainstream reflections of contemporary life.

He said this about Florida: "The Sunshine State is a paradise of scandals teeming with drifters, deadbeats, and misfits drawn here by some dark primordial calling like demented trout. And you'd be surprised how many of them decide to run for public office."

Hiaasen's Florida is a hive of greedy businessmen, corrupt politicians, dumb blondes, apathetic retirees, intellectually challenged tourists, hard-luck redneck cooters, and militant ecoteurs. It is the same Florida of John D. MacDonald and Travis McGee, but aged another 20 years and viewed with a more satiric or sardonic eye.

Basket Case - 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 for 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.

Flush - A 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, it turns out that it's near impossible to catch the flusher – especially when he's already bamboozled the prosecutors, the local press, and even the Coast Guard.

Hoot - A book for young readers: It involves new kids, bullies, alligators, eco-warriors, pancakes, and pint-sized owls. 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 intriguing: 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.

Lucky You - JoLayne Lucks lives in a town infamous for its suspicious miracles, but she's still elated when her lottery numbers finally pay off big – $28 million, to be exact. And she has great plans for her fortune: to save a rare piece of Florida paradise from the bulldozers. Only one problem: There's another winning Lotto ticket, and the people who've got it just never learned how to share. When the two militia wannabes swipe JoLayne's ticket, she enlists an off-the-rails newspaperman to help her track down the trigger-happy creeps and their bewildered hostage, a Hooters waitress. Getting rich quick is never easy...

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Native Tongue - When 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, he's 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....

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Nature Girl - The engaging and diverse screwball cast includes Boyd Shreave, a semi-competent telemarketer; Shreave's mistress and co-worker, Eugenie Fonda; Honey Santana, a mercurial gadfly who ends up on the other end of one of Shreave's pitches for Florida real estate; and Sammy Tigertail, half Seminole, who at novel's start must figure out what to do with the body of a tourist who dies of a heart attack on Sammy's airboat after being struck by a harmless water snake. When Santana cooks up an elaborate scheme to punish Shreave for nasty comments he made during his solicitation call, she ends up involving her 12-year-old son, Fry, and her ex-husband in a frantic chase that enmeshes Tigertail and the young co-ed Sammy accidentally has taken hostage.

Paradise Screwed: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen - The columns take you on a wide-ranging safari, observing south Florida's wildlife in its natural habitat – from fat-cat politicians to migrating mobsters, drowning dolphins to stray chads. This collection of Miami Herald columns – written with a satiric wit and biting humor – will give Hiaasen fans a glimpse of the facts that inspire his frenetic fiction.

Harking back to the muckraking journalists of old, Hiaasen lets readers in on the comings and goings of corrupt local politicos, misguided tourist bureaus, and flailing sports franchises. He tackles such current events as the Elian Gonzalez imbroglio and the 2000 presidential election recount.

Scat - 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.

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Sick Puppy - 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.

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Skin Tight - In his attempt to lead a quiet life, ex-investigator Mick Stranahan doesn't expect to have a Mafia hit-man come knocking on his door. He disposes of him promptly with a stuffed marlin head. On closer inspection, he notices that the man has recently undergone plastic surgery...

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Skinny Dip - 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...

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Star Island - Meet 22-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?

Stormy Weather - When a ferocious hurricane rips through Southern Florida, the con artists and carpetbaggers waste no time swarming over the disaster area. Among the predators are Edie Marsh, an entrepreneurial young woman whose scheme to sleep with a Palm Beach Kennedy has fizzled, freeing her to concoct a colossal insurance rip-off; Lester Maddox Parsons, a murderous ex-con whose violent encounter with a game warden has left him with the fitting nickname of "Snapper;" and Avila, a crooked building inspector-turned-roofer, who dabbles somewhat unsuccessfully in the occult.

Caught in the middle are Max and Bonnie Lamb, newlyweds torn in wildly different directions by the storm. It is Max's fateful decision to abort their Disney World honeymoon and race to Dade County to see the terrible devastation. Armed with a video camera, the ambitious young advertising executive can't wait to show his hurricane tapes to his buddies back in New York. Over Bonnie's objections, Max eagerly sets out through the rubble, debris, and mayhem – and promptly vanishes. The only clue to his whereabouts: a runaway monkey. But there's also a man called Skink who has devoted his very strange existence to saving Florida from the kinds of people blown in by the hurricane. It is he, crazed and determined, who prowls the swath of the storm and forever changes the lives of Max, Bonnie, Edie, and the others.

Strip Tease - Congressman David Dilbeck has a bad problem. "I should never," he says, "be around naked women." And late one night, at a gaudy Fort Lauderdale strip joint, Dilbeck loses control. He leaps onto the stage with the performers and proceeds to demonstrate his affections in a most unconventional way. The congressman barely escapes the scene, but not before being recognized by an odd little customer known as Mr. Peepers – an unlikely blackmailer, but (it turns out) a cunning one. From the staid corridors of Congress to the sweltering cane fields of Lake Okeechobee, from a topless wrestling pit to a sunken Guatemalan banana boat...