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.
Squirm
Squirm
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