If I have one complaint about Carl - and I guess it’s a big one - it’s that he’s annoyingly tall and handsome. He doesn’t take cheap shots at the addled and unlucky souls lazy writers make fun of in those obnoxious “Weird Florida” stories. Most of us know him as a brilliant satirist from his novels, of course, but he’s also been the ferocious columnist, slayer of bad leaders and bad ideas, I will especially miss. It’s how I think he formed his profound sense of place and the love for the environment he brings to his work. He grew up on the edge of the Everglades fishing for bass and catching snakes. We are walking among characters every day, if we only open our eyes, squint sideways and pop them back out onto the page. Reading Carl Hiaasen in every form helped me understand that all the absurd and wonderful material any writer ever needs is right here in the real world. It’s the combination that has been the most inspiring, the most instructive to witness.

His columns and novels can stand apart, of course, exceptional in their own ways. Across Florida, a whole lot of bad actors must be doing the Snoopy dance at the news that he won’t be pointing that razor-sharp column at them anymore. Hiaasen defined outrage and voiced it for the rest of us. My native Floridian dad thoroughly enjoyed the regular comeuppance Carl Hiaasen gave certain politicians on the pages of the Herald, and he passed that on to me.

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.On the occasion of Carl Hiaasen retiring from his column for the Miami Herald, we asked several current and former Tampa Bay Times columnists to weigh in on his career. 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.Īlong 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).

Meanwhile, Cuban and Colombian drug smugglers thrive all around-and they have their sights set on Albury and his fishing boat.Īfter the smugglers cut his three hundred trap lines and crush his livelihood, Albury is forced to run drugs to survive. 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. 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).

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