Carl Hiaasen was born in 1953 in Plantation, Florida.
He graduated from the University of Florida in 1972 and started working for The Miami Herald in 1976.
In 1985 he starting writing an opinion column for the Herald, which lasted until 2021. The column, according to his online bio, “at one time or another thrashed just about every major politician in the state — and occasionally his own bosses. One of Hiaasen’s proudest moments came when a Miami City Commissioner who was enraged by the columns introduced a resolution officially denouncing him.”
Hiaasen began writing novels in the early 1980s with his friend and fellow journalist, William D. Montalbano. They wrote three mysteries: Powder Burn, Trap Line and Death in China.
In 1986, Hiaasen published his first solo novel: Tourist Season.
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Florida Books by Carl Hiaasen
Tourist Season
Published: 1986Take 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…Read More
Categories: Carl Hiaasen , Humorous Fiction , standalone
Double Whammy
Published: 1987R.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…Read More
Categories: Carl Hiaasen , Humorous Fiction , Skink
Skin Tight
Published: 1989After 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…Read More
Categories: Carl Hiaasen , Humorous Fiction , Mick Stranahan
Native Tongue
Published: 1991When 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…Read More
Categories: Carl Hiaasen , Humorous Fiction , Skink
Strip Tease
Published: 1993Only 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…Read More
Categories: Carl Hiaasen , Humorous Fiction , standalone
Stormy Weather
Published: 1995When a ferocious hurricane rips through southern Florida, con artists and carpetbaggers waste no time in swarming over the disaster area. Among them are insurance fraudsters, amateur occultists, and ex-cons on the loose. And caught in the middle are Max and Bonnie Lamb, honeymooners who abandon their Disney World plans to…Read More
Categories: Carl Hiaasen , Humorous Fiction , Skink
Lucky You
Published: 1997Grange, 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 believe they’re…Read More
Categories: Carl Hiaasen , Humorous Fiction , standalone
Sick Puppy
Published: 2000When 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…Read More
Categories: Carl Hiaasen , Humorous Fiction , Skink
Hoot
Published: 2002This Newbery Honor winner and #1 New York Times bestseller is a beloved modern classic. Hoot features a new kid and his new bully, alligators, some burrowing owls, a renegade eco-avenger, and several extremely poisonous snakes. Everybody loves Mother Paula’s pancakes. Everybody, that is, except the colony of cute but endangered owls that live…Read More
Categories: Carl Hiaasen , Juvenile Fiction
Basket Case
Published: 2002Once a hotshot investigative reporter, Jack Tagger now bangs out obituaries for a South Florida daily, “plotting to resurrect my newspaper career by yoking my byline to some famous stiff.” Jimmy Stoma, the infamous front man of Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, dead in a fishy-smelling scuba “accident,” might be…Read More
Categories: Carl Hiaasen , Humorous Fiction , standalone
Skinny Dip
Published: 2004Chaz 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…Read More
Categories: Carl Hiaasen , Humorous Fiction , Mick Stranahan , Skink
Flush
Published: 2005A 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…Read More
Categories: Carl Hiaasen , Juvenile Fiction
Nature Girl
Published: 2006Honey Santana—impassioned, willful, possibly bipolar, self-proclaimed “queen of lost causes”—has a scheme to help rid the world of irresponsibility, indifference, and dinnertime sales calls. She’s taking rude, gullible Relentless, Inc., telemarketer Boyd Shreave and his less-than-enthusiastic mistress, Eugenie—the fifteen-minute-famous girlfriend of a tabloid murderer—into the wilderness of Florida’s Ten Thousand…Read More
Categories: Carl Hiaasen , Humorous Fiction , standalone
Scat
Published: 2009Carl 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…Read More
Categories: Carl Hiaasen , Juvenile Fiction
Star Island
Published: 2010Meet twenty-two-year-old Cherry Pye (née Cheryl Bunterman), a pop star since she was fourteen—and about to attempt a comeback from her latest drug-and-alcohol disaster. Now meet Cherry again: in the person of her “undercover stunt double,” Ann DeLusia. Ann portrays Cherry whenever the singer is too “indisposed”—meaning wasted—to go out…Read More
Categories: Carl Hiaasen , Humorous Fiction , Skink
Chomp
Published: 2012Chomp is one of Carl Hiaasen’s Young Adult novels. After Wahoo Cray’s dad, a wildlife wrangler, who owns a collection of dangerous animals, gets hit on the head by a falling, frozen iguana and is out of work, the family finds itself in a financial crisis. So, when an offer…Read More
Categories: Carl Hiaasen , Juvenile Fiction
Bad Monkey
Published: 2013In Carl Hiaasen‘s Bad Monkey, Andrew Yancy is suspended from his job as a Key West Detective after sodomizing his girlfriend’s husband in broad daylight with a Dust Buster. When the Sheriff asks him to take a severed arm to Miami, it kicks off what Yancy hopes is his ticket…Read More
Categories: Andrew Yancy , Carl Hiaasen , Humorous Fiction
Skink–No Surrender
Published: 2014Richard’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…Read More
Categories: Carl Hiaasen , Humorous Fiction , Juvenile Fiction , Skink
Razor Girl
Published: 2016When Lane Coolman’s car is bashed from behind on the road to the Florida Keys, what appears to be an ordinary accident is anything but (this is Hiaasen!). Behind the wheel of the other car is Merry Mansfield–the eponymous Razor Girl–and the crash scam is only the beginning of events…Read More
Categories: Andrew Yancy , Carl Hiaasen , Humorous Fiction
Squirm
Published: 2018A 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…Read More
Categories: Carl Hiaasen , Juvenile Fiction
Squeeze Me
Published: 2020t’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…Read More
Categories: Carl Hiaasen , Humorous Fiction , standalone
Wrecker
Published: 2023Wrecker 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…Read More
Categories: Carl Hiaasen , Juvenile Fiction