20 Best Carl Hiaasen Books

Suspended detective Andrew Yancy is stuck inspecting restaurant kitchens in the Keys until a tourist reels in a severed arm. His refusal to drop the case pulls him into Medicare fraud, a crooked Bahamas resort, a not-quite-widow and one very ill-tempered monkey.

Down-on-his-luck PI R.J. Decker is hired to prove a celebrity bass fisherman cheats on the pro circuit. When a body turns up and Decker is framed, he teams with one-eyed hermit Skink to expose a toxic mix of fishing fraud, televangelism and shady development.

Ex-reporter Joe Winder writes cheerful copy for a bargain theme park in the Keys until its rare “mango voles” are stolen. His search pits him against a fugitive racketeer running the park, a massive resort scheme, animal-rights pranksters and the feral ex-governor known as Skink.

Retired investigator Mick Stranahan is enjoying life on his Biscayne Bay stilt house when a hit man shows up at his door. The failed hit drags him into a deadly feud with a phony plastic surgeon, a missing patient, and a tabloid TV show hungry for scandal.

On a cruise celebrating their anniversary, Joey Perrone’s husband shoves her overboard to hide his Everglades pollution scam. Joey survives, secretly teams with loner Mick Stranahan, and orchestrates an inventive, slow-motion revenge that dismantles his career and his confidence.

In the wreckage left by a catastrophic hurricane, honeymooners, scam artists, insurance adjusters and mob muscle all descend on South Florida. Skink prowls the ruins as quick-buck schemes, shoddy construction and escaped zoo animals turn disaster recovery into full-tilt chaos.

New kid Roy Eberhardt befriends a barefoot prankster and a tough soccer star in a Florida town. Together they try to stop a pancake house from paving over endangered burrowing owls, mixing humor, schoolyard trouble and a smart lesson in standing up for wildlife.

A con artist who stages rear-end collisions for kidnappings hits the wrong car, derailing a talent agent’s trip and a reality star’s tour. Health inspector Andrew Yancy is pulled into a Keys caper involving neo-Nazis, mobbed-up sand contractors and very bad publicity.

When a wealthy Palm Beach socialite vanishes during a charity gala and a bloated python turns up nearby, panic grips the island’s elite. Wildlife trapper Angie Armstrong, a vilified immigrant and the ever-feral Skink slowly reveal who the real predators are.

Single mom Erin Grant dances at a Fort Lauderdale strip club to fund a brutal custody battle. When a dim, kinky congressman fixates on her, she’s pulled into a lethal stew of blackmail, sugar-money politics and improvised revenge in the cane fields.

A rogue newspaper columnist forms a tiny terror cell to scare tourists away from Florida, leaving bodies and bizarre manifestos scattered across Miami. Private investigator Brian Keyes hunts the killers through booster clubs, civic hype and a very hungry crocodile.

Wahoo Cray’s animal-wrangler father takes a job handling gators and snakes for a phony survival TV show. As its pompous star blunders through the Everglades and a runaway girl hides from her abusive dad, the shoot lurches from staged danger into the real thing.

Noah’s dad sinks a floating casino he swears is dumping raw sewage into the harbor and lands in jail without proof. Noah, his fearless sister Abbey and a few sketchy allies cook up a messy plan to expose the cheating owner and save their beach.

Eco-vigilante Twilly Spree fixates on lobbyist Palmer Stoat after watching him litter from a luxury SUV, then discovers Stoat is pushing a bridge and condo project that will wipe out a wild island. Dog-napping, blackmail and swampy retribution soon follow.

Drug-wrecked pop star Cherry Pye relies on actress Ann DeLusia to impersonate her whenever she’s too wasted to perform. When Ann is kidnapped by an obsessed paparazzo, Cherry’s entourage scrambles to manage the scandal, while Skink quietly pursues his own rough brand of justice.

Demoted to the obituary desk, ex-investigative reporter Jack Tagger spots something off about the supposed diving death of rock singer Jimmy Stoma. Chasing the story may revive his career, if a scheming widow, nervous executives and a gutless publisher don’t stop him first.

In a Palm Beach-season caper, dim ex-extremist Dale Figgo drifts into leading a fringe white-nationalist group camping on a protected beach. Newly broke Viva Morales and hotheaded eco-avenger Twilly Spree follow the money behind the hate and plot a very Hiaasen-style reckoning.

When JoLayne Lucks wins the Florida lottery, two broke white supremacists beat her and steal the ticket to fund their tiny militia. Reporter Tom Krome joins JoLayne to steal it back, exposing paranoid conspiracies and small-town grifters along the way.

After a rude telemarketer ruins dinner, Honey Santana lures him to Florida with a fake eco-tour meant to teach him a lesson. Their trip into the Ten Thousand Islands spirals into a darkly funny tangle of exes, a Seminole guide, a stalker and one determined twelve-year-old.

When feared biology teacher Mrs. Starch disappears after a suspicious fire on a field trip, classmates Nick and Marta start asking questions. Their search leads into the Everglades, where a shy boy, an energy company and endangered panthers are all hiding something.