Carl Hiaasen
Carl Hiaasen (1953 - ) is a Florida-born journalist, essayist, and novelist who has both embodied and transcended his native state. He embodies it by knowing it as well as any living writer, with the possible good company of Dave Barry. He transcends it by possessing the ability and artistry to view it with critical distance. He can work up a powerful passion of iconoclasm, a muckraker’s ferocious energy in going after the criminals, especially in environmental concerns. Simultaneously, however, he is a careful and fair observer of how the strange state of Florida works from day to day.
In my many years’ experience with the state (I still have family in Sarasota), I have traveled it north to south, east to west, Hiaasen captures it as well as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and John D. Macdonald did. His skill at creating colorful characters and winging wild plots with gusto has disguised sometimes his remarkable writing. Up here in central Pennsylvania he is one of my bestselling “mystery” writers, suggesting that good writing has no regional limitations.
Please note that I carry all his adult fiction, his columns from his long career at the Miami Herald, and his fine young adult novels.
Squeeze Me
Squeeze Me
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A hilarious novel of social and political intrigue, set against the glittering backdrop of Florida’s gold coast, from the author of Skinny Dip and Razor Girl
“If you could use some wild escapism right now, Hiaasen is your guy.” —The New York Times
WITH A NEW EPILOGUE
At the height of Palm Beach’s charity ball season, Kiki Pew Fitzsimmons, a prominent member of geriatric high society, suddenly vanishes during a swank gala. Kiki Pew was a founding member of the Potussies, a group of women dedicated to supporting the President, who spends half the year at the “Winter White House” just down the road. Meanwhile, Angie Armstrong, wildlife wrangler extraordinaire, is called to the island to deal with a monster-sized Burmese python that has taken residency in a tree. But the President is focused on the disappearance of Kiki Pew. Never one to miss an opportunity to play to his base, he immediately declares her a victim of rampaging immigrant hordes. This, it turns out, is far from the truth, which now lies in the middle of the road, where a bizarre discovery brings the First Lady’s motorcade to a grinding halt. Irreverent, ingenious, and uproariously entertaining, Squeeze Me perfectly captures the absurdity of our times.