Best Selling Books by Carl Hiaasen

A hilarious, high-stakes adventure involving crooked casino boats, floating fish, toxic beaches, and one kid determined to get justice. This is Carl Hiaasen''s Florida—where the creatures are wild and the people are wilder! You know it''s going to be a rough summer when you spend Father''s Day visiting your dad in the local lockup. 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 stuck in the clink. Now Noah is determined to succeed where his dad failed. He will prove that the Coral Queen is dumping illegally . . . somehow. His allies may not add up to much–his sister Abbey, an unreformed childhood biter; Lice Peeking, a greedy sot with poor hygiene; Shelly, a bartender and a woman scorned; and a mysterious pirate–but Noah''s got a plan to flush this crook out into the open. A plan that should sink the crooked little casino, once and for all.

Hiaasen''s first book for young readers--a Newbery Honor Book--involves new kids, bullies, alligators, and pint-sized owls in a hilarious Floridian adventure. Now repackaged.

Honey Santana, the bipolar, self-proclaimed "queen of lost causes," has plans to give Boyd Shreave and his mistress a lesson in civility, unaware that she is being followed by her obsessed ex-employer and her one-time drug runner ex-husband.

"A whole lot Survivor, a little bit The Tempest, with a pinch of Laurel and Hardy ... Hiaasen''s ear is pitch-perfect." --- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution --

A wildly entertaining adventure involving snakes, grizzlies, a menacing drone, a missing father, and the kid determined to find him. In classic Hiaasen fashion, the animals here are wild, and the people are wilder! 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 insists on getting a house near a bald eagle nest. * Billy''s dad left when he was four and is a total mystery. * 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. "A fun romp that will keep readers hooked." —The New York Times

Richard''s cousin is missing, and his best hope of finding her rests with the wily, one-eyed, ex-governor of Florida. Carl Hiaasen introduces his iconic character Skink to a younger audience in this nail-biting adventure! A National Book Award Longlist Selection Classic Malley: her parents are about to ship her off to boarding school, so she takes off with some guy she met online... Poor Richard: he''s less of a rebel than Malley, and a lot less trusting. He knows his cousin is in trouble before she does. Wild Skink: he''s a ragged, one-eyed, ex-governor of Florida, and enough of a renegade to think he can track Malley down. With Richard riding shotgun, this unlikely pair scour the state, undaunted by blinding storms, crazed pigs, flying bullets, and giant gators. In Carl Hiaasen''s outrageous, hilarious, and wildly dangerous state of Florida, there are a million places an outlaw might stash a teenage girl. A million unpleasant ways to die. And two who will risk everything to rescue a friend . . . and to, hopefully, exact a bit of swamp justice.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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, in the cemetery, even right outside his own door. 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. . . .

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A hilarious and scathing novel from the author of Squeeze Me about a crazed and determined man who has devoted his strange existence to saving southern Florida from con artists and carpetbaggers after a hurricane hits. "Hysterically funny…. Hiaasen at his satirical best." —USA Today When a ferocious hurricane rips through southern Florida, insurance fraudsters, amateur occultists, and ex-cons waste no time in swarming over the disaster area. And caught in the middle are Max and Bonnie Lamb, honeymooners who abandon their Disney World plans to witness the terrible devastation. But when Max vanishes, Bonnie, aided by a mysterious young man with a tranquilizer gun and a roomful of human skulls, has to follow her only clue: a runaway monkey.

“If you could use some wild escapism right now, Hiaasen is your guy.” —Janet Maslin, The New York Times From the author of Skinny Dip and Razor Girl, a hilarious, New York Times best-selling novel of social and political intrigues, set against the glittering backdrop of Florida’s gold coast. It''s the height of the Palm Beach charity ball season: for every disease or cause, there''s a reason for the local luminaries to eat (minimally), drink (maximally), and be seen. But when a prominent high-society dowager suddenly vanishes during a swank gala, and is later found dead in a concrete grave, panic and chaos erupt. Kiki Pew was notable not just for her wealth and her jewels--she was an ardent fan of the Winter White House resident just down the road, and a founding member of the POTUSSIES, a group of women dedicated to supporting their President. Never one to miss an opportunity to play to his base, the President immediately declares that Kiki was the victim of rampaging immigrant hordes. This, it turns out, is far from the truth. The truth might just lie in the middle of the highway, where a bizarre discovery brings the First Lady''s motorcade to a grinding halt (followed by some grinding between the First Lady and a love-struck 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 . . . Carl Hiaasen can brighten even the darkest of days and Squeeze Me is pure, unadulterated Hiaasen. Irreverent, ingenious, and highly entertaining, Squeeze Me perfectly captures the absurdity of our times.

Now an Apple Original series from Ted Lasso Executive Producer Bill Lawrence and starring Vince Vaughn • A wickedly funny novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Squeeze Me in which the greedy, the corrupt, and the degraders of what’s left of pristine Florida—now, of the Bahamas as well—get their comeuppance. “[A] comedic marvel … [Hiaasen] hasn’t written a novel this funny since Skinny Dip.”—The New York Times Andrew Yancy—late of the Miami Police and soon-to-be-late of the Monroe County sheriff’s office—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 shadowy owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, the sheriff might rescue him from his grisly Health Inspector gig (it’s not called the roach patrol for nothing). But first—this being Hiaasen country—Yancy must negotiate an obstacle course of wildly unpredictable events with a crew of even more wildly unpredictable characters, including his just-ex lover, a hot-blooded fugitive from Kansas; the twitchy widow of the frozen arm; two avariciously optimistic real-estate speculators; the Bahamian voodoo witch known as the Dragon Queen, whose suitors are blinded unto death by her peculiar charms; Yancy’s new true love, a kinky coroner; and the eponymous bad monkey, who with hilarious aplomb earns his place among Carl Hiaasen’s greatest characters.

Carl Hiaasen takes us deep in the Everglades with an eccentric eco-avenger, a ticked-off panther, and two kids on a mission to find their missing teacher. Florida—where the animals are wild and the people are wilder! 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. It’s all about to hit the fan, and when it does, the bad guys better scat. “Ingenious . . . Scat won’t disappoint Hiaasenphiles of any age.” —The New York Times “Woohoo! It’s time for another trip to Florida—screwy, gorgeous Florida, with its swamps and scammers and strange creatures (two- and four-legged). Our guide, of course, is Carl Hiaasen.” —DenverPost.com

Spending his days in a zoo beside his volatile animal wrangler father, Wahoo Cray struggles to control his father''s temper when the latter takes a job with an egocentric reality nature show host. By the Newbery Honor-winning author of Hoot.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A rollicking and hilarious novel from the bestselling author of Squeeze Me and “Florida’s most entertainingly indignant social critic” (New York Times Book Review). Jack Tagger’s years in exile at the obituaries desk of a South Florida daily haven’t dulled his investigative reporter’s nose for a good story. When Jimmy Stoma, the infamous front man of Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, dies in a fishy scuba accident, Jack sees his ticket back to page one—if only he can figure out what really happened. Standing in his way are, just for starters, his ambitious young editor, who hasn’t yet fired anyone but plans to “break her cherry” on Jack; the rock star’s pop-singer widow, who’s using the occasion of her husband’s death to relaunch her own career; and the soulless, profit-hungry owner of the newspaper, whom Jack once publicly humiliated at a stockholders’ meeting. Following clues from the late rock singer’s own music, Jack tries to unravel the lies surrounding Jimmy Stoma’s strange fate.

From the New York Times bestselling author comes a novel in which dedicated, if somewhat demented, environmentalists battle sleazy real estate developers in the Florida Keys. "Rips, zips, hurtles, keeping us turning the pages at breakfinger pace." —New York Times Book Review 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, 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....

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From “Florida’s most entertainingly indignant social critic” (New York Times Book Review)—an inventive tale yet of savage appetites and sweet justice. Only in America could an innocent, if drunken, guest of honor at a strip joint bachelor party become a mortal threat against Big Money and Big Government. Only in south Florida, land of roadside honky-tonks and sinister pleasure boats—not to mention blackmail and murder—would a virtuous topless dancer join forces with a cool but clueless cop. And only in the fiction of Carl Hiaasen do readers experience riveting suspense and razor-sharp characters along with the most wicked humor imaginable.

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. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Carl Hiaasen''s Bad Monkey.

Readers who eagerly anticipate each new Carl Hiaasen novel will relish this selection of his Miami Herald columns, written with the same dark humor and satirical edge as Tourist Season, Strip Tease, Stormy Weather, and the rest of Hiaasen’s brilliant and nationally acclaimed fiction. Known for evoking the disastrously flawed paradise of modern South Florida, Hiaasen proves in these columns that facts can indeed be stranger than the fiction they inspire. Beginning with "Welcome to South Florida," a chapter introducing such everyday events as animal sacrifice, riots at the beach, and a shootout over limes at the supermarket, this collection organizes over 200 columns into 18 chapters, chronicling the events and defining the issues that have kept the South Florida melting pot bubbling throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s. An introductory essay provides an overview of Hiaasen’s career and outlines his principal concerns as a journalist. Since its inception in 1985, Hiaasen’s twice-weekly "baseball-bat-to-the-forehead" column has become enormously popular for its passionate conviction and willingness to confront powerful interests in pursuit of the public good. Amid the corruption and chaos of a city on the edge, Hiaasen’s pointblank honesty and clear articulation of what’s right have secured him wide respect across the community’s many racial and ethnic divides as well as the admiration of his peers, who compare him to A. J. Leibling, I. F. Stone, and H. L. Mencken. In addition to South Florida color and world-class journalism, readers of Kick Ass will find one of Florida’s staunchest defenders in action, and they’ll take great pleasure in watching him work.

Take a trip to exotic South Florida with this dark, funny book that established Carl Hiaasen as one of the top mystery writers in the game. The first sign of trouble is a Shriner''s fez washed up on a Miami beach. The next is a suitcase containing the almost-legless body of the local chamber of commerce president found floating in a canal... The locals are desperate to keep the murders under wraps and the tourist money flowing. But it will take a reporter-turned–private eye to make sense of a caper that mixes football players, politicians, and one very hungry crocodile in this classic mystery that GQ called “one of the top ten destination reads of all time.”

Bestselling author Carl Hiaasen serves up a humorous helping of "taut, fast-paced action...crisp and hot” (The New York Times). 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...

"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 RODENT TEAM RODENT How 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."

This collection features five of Carl Hiaasen''s hilarious, award-winning classics! Take a trip to Carl Hiaasen''s Florida--where the animals are wild and the people are wilder--with this collection that includes Hoot, Flush, Scat, Chomp, and Squirm. Hoot: Everybody loves Mother Paula''s pancakes. Everybody, that is, except the cute but endangered owls that live on the building site of the new restaurant. Can the awkward new kid and his feral friend prank the pancake people out of town? Or is the owls'' fate cemented in pancake batter? Flush: The Coral Queen casino boat is treating the ocean like a toilet bowl, so Noah''s dad decides to sink the darn thing. Problem is, there''s no evidence of illegal dumping. Now Dad''s in the clink, the boat''s back in business, and only Noah can flush the truth out into the open. Scat: The most terrifying teacher in school is missing in the Everglades, and it''s up to Nick and Marta to find her. But first they''ll have to reckon with a junior arsonist, a wannabe Texas oilman, and a ticked-off Florida panther. It''s all about to hit the fan, and when it does, these kids better scat. Chomp: When Wahoo Cray''s dad--a professional animal wrangler--takes a job with a reality-TV survival show, Wahoo figures he''ll have to do a bit of wrangling himself to keep his father from killing the show''s inept and egotistical star. But the job keeps getting more complicated--and it isn''t just the animals who are ready to chomp. Squirm: 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.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A lovable con woman and a disgraced detective team up to find a redneck reality TV star in this raucous new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Squeeze Me. “Carl Hiaasen’s irresistible Razor Girl meets his usual sky-high standards for elegance, craziness and mike-drop humor.” —The New York Times Merry Mansfield, the eponymous Razor Girl, specializes in kidnapping for the mob. Her preferred method is rear-ending her targets and asking them for a ride. Her latest mark is Martin Trebeaux, owner of a private beach renourishment company who has delivered substandard sand to a mob hotel. But there''s just one problem: Razor Girl hits the wrong guy. Instead, she ends up with Lane Coolman, talent manager for Buck Nance, the star of a reality TV show about a family of Cajun rooster farmers. Buck Nance, left to perform standup at a Key West bar without his handler, makes enough off-color jokes to incite a brawl, then flees for his life and vanishes.

Brilliantly twisted entertainment wrapped around a powerful ecological plea—from the New York Times bestselling author of Squeeze Me. When Palmer Stoat notices the black pickup truck following him on the highway, he fears his precious Range Rover is about to be carjacked. But Twilly Spree, the man tailing Stoat, has vengeance, not sport-utility vehicles, on his mind. Idealistic, independently wealthy and pathologically short-tempered, Twilly has dedicated himself to saving Florida''s wilderness from runaway destruction. He favors unambiguous political statements—such as torching Jet-Skis or blowing up banks—that leave his human targets shaken but re-educated. After watching Stoat blithely dump a trail of fast-food litter out the window, Twilly decides to teach him a lesson. Thus, Stoat''s prized Range Rover becomes home to a horde of hungry dung beetles. Which could have been the end to it had Twilly not discovered that Stoat is one of Florida''s cockiest and most powerful political fixers, whose latest project is the "malling" of a pristine Gulf Coast island. Now the real Hiaasen-variety fun begins… Dognapping eco-terrorists, bogus big-time hunters, a Republicans-only hooker, an infamous ex-governor who''s gone back to nature, thousands of singing toads and a Labrador retriever greater than the sum of his Labrador parts—these are only some of the denizens of Carl Hiaasen''s outrageously funny new novel.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Squeeze Me—and “Florida’s most entertainingly indignant social critic” (New York Times Book Review)—a novel starring three lottery winners, two heavily armed psychopaths, and a big-city investigative journalist set deep in Florida Bay. Grange, 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 want the whole $28 million jackpot to start their own underground militia. The pursuit takes them to a buzzard-infested island deep in Florida Bay, where they finally catch up with the fledgling militia—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.

Discover the funny side of Florida with #1 New York Times bestselling author Carl Hiaasen in this collection of four books: Hoot, Flush, Scat and Chomp. "It''s classic Hiaasen—laugh-out-loud Satire in a Florida setting." —Life

“Follow the adventures of a news-photographer-turned-private-eye as he seeks truth, justice, and an affair with his ex-wife” (The New York Times) in this hilarious caper from bestselling author Carl Hiaasen. 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.

"Along with Kick Ass, this is one of the best collections of occasional journalism published in recent years."--Booklist (starred review)

Originally drawn to the game by his father, Carl Hiaasen wisely quit golfing in 1973. 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 bastard.” 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 offers an extraordinary audiobook for the ordinary hacker. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Carl Hiaasen''s Bad Monkey.

An American investigates a murder amid the secrecy and corruption of China in this crime thriller from the New York Times–bestselling author of Razor Girl. Art history professor Tom Stratton hasn’t seen his former mentor David Wang for years—until they unexpectedly run into each other while Stratton is on a guided tour of China. But the reunion doesn’t last long. After Wang is found dead—and the American embassy fumbles the investigation—Stratton sets out to solve the mystery of the killing on his own. Before long, he’s tangled in a web of corruption that reaches the highest seats of power. Beset by the suffocating secrecy and subterfuge of communist China, Stratton must find his friend’s murderer—before the fury of a brutal conspiracy closes in on him. Along with Powder Burn and Trap Line, this international mystery is one of the early suspense thrillers written by Carl Hiaasen and Bill Montalbano, a writing team praised for their “fine flair for characters and settings” (Library Journal).

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.

A Key West fishing captain takes on Florida’s drug lords in this “splendidly written” crime story coauthored by the #1 New York Times–bestselling novelist (The New York Times Book Review). Though he is one of Key West’s most skilled fishing captains, Breeze Albury barely ekes out a living on the meager earnings of his trade. Meanwhile, Cuban and Colombian drug smugglers thrive all around—and they have their sights set on Albury and his fishing boat. After the smugglers cut his three hundred trap lines and crush his livelihood, Albury is forced to run drugs to survive. But when he gets busted by the crooked chief of police and becomes a target of the drug machine’s brutal hit men, Albury becomes a vigilante on the seas of Florida, unleashing a fiery and relentless vengeance on the most dangerous criminals south of Miami. Along with Powder Burn and A Death in China, this is one of the early suspense thrillers written by Carl Hiaasen and Bill Montalbano, a writing team praised for their “fine flair for characters and settings” (Library Journal). Perfect for fans of the Doc Ford novels by Randy Wayne White, Trap Line is an action-packed preview of Hiaasen’s stellar Florida-set crime novels including Sick Puppy, Tourist Season, and Razor Girl.

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.

A comic mystery written by 13 authors, each of whom contributed a chapter, often including characters from his other books. The plot concerns a 102-year-old woman swimmer in Florida, defending the environment with the help of a sea cow. She becomes involved with drug smugglers, Cuban revanchists and murder.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A collection of the best Miami Herald columns from the New York Times bestselling author of Squeeze Me on burning issues like animal welfare, polluted rivers, and the broken criminal justice system. If you think the wildest, wackiest stories that Carl Hiaasen can tell have all made it into his hilarious, bestselling novels, think again. Dance of the Reptiles collects the best of Hiaasen’s Miami Herald columns, which lay bare the stories—large and small—that demonstrate anew that truth is far stranger than fiction. Hiaasen offers his commentary—indignant, disbelieving, sometimes righteously angry, and frequently hilarious—on issues like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Bernie Madoff''s trial, and the shenanigans of the recent presidential elections. Whether or not you have read Carl Hiaasen before, you are in for a wild ride.

Roy, who is new to his small Florida community, becomes involved in another boy''s attempt to save a colony of burrowing owls from a proposed construction site. In Spanish.