Every Carl Hiaasen Crime Novel in One Place
Carl Hiaasen has captivated and enthralled audiences of all ages with his books for 40-plus years. A journalist turned full-time author, over twenty-one of his novels and nonfiction books are on the New York Times Best Sellers list. But his accomplishments don’t stop there: Strip Tease was turned into a movie adaption starring Demi Moore and Burt Reynolds in 1996, and Bad Monkey recently made its streaming debut on Apple TV+ in August 2024.
Known for their satirical take on his home state of sunny Florida and chock full of with humor, quirky characters, and intricate plots, here are Carl Hiaasen’s mystery thriller and crime books to start reading.
Thus begins Fever Beach, with an errand that leads–in pure Hiaasen-style–into the depths of Florida at its most Floridian: a sun-soaked bastion of right-wing extremism, white power, greed, and corruption. Figgo, it turns out, is the only hate-monger ever to be kicked out of the Proud Boys for being too dumb and incompetent. On January 6, 2021 he thought he was defacing a statue of Ulysses S. Grant, but he wound up spreading feces all over a statue of James Zacharia George, a Civil War Confederate war leader.
Figgo’s already messy life is about to get more complicated, thanks to two formidable adversaries. Viva Morales is a newly transplanted Floridian, a clever woman recently taken to the cleaners by her ex-husband, now working at the Mink Foundation, a supposedly philanthropic organization, and renting a room in Figgo’s apartment because there’s no place else she can afford. Twilly Spree has an anger management problem, especially when it comes to those who deface the environment, and way too many inherited millions of dollars. He’s living alone a year after his dog died, two years after he sank a city councilman’s party barge, and three years after his divorce.
Viva and Twilly are plunged into a mystery–involving dark money and darker motives–they are determined to solve, and become entangled in a world populated by some of Hiaasen’s most outrageous characters: Claude and Electra Mink–billionaire philanthropists with way too much plastic surgery and a secret right-wing agenda–and Congressman Clure Boyette–who dreams of being Florida’s (and maybe America’s) most important politician. The only things standing in his way are his love for hookers and young girls, and his total lack of intelligence. We meet Noel Kristianson–a Scandinavian agnostic injured when Figgo thinks he’s a Jewish threat to humanity and runs him over with his car; Jonas Onus–Figgo’s partner in white power idiocy; and many, many more. Hiaasen ties them all together and delivers them to their appropriate fates, in his wildest and most entertaining novel to date.
The locals are desperate to keep the murders under wraps and the tourist money flowing. But it will take a reporter-turned-private eye to make sense of a caper that mixes football players, politicians, and one very hungry crocodile in this classic mystery that GQ called “one of the top ten destination reads of all time.”
Now, if he wants to keep fishing into his golden years, Stranahan has no choice but to come out of retirement to close this one last case…
When the precious blue-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 gone, Winder is dragged along in their wake through a series of weird and lethal events that begin with the sleazy real-estate agent/villain Francis X. Kingsbury and can end only one way….
The effects of his quest will ripple through the spotlights of the strip joint, the sugar cane fields of south Florida, and some powerful political careers. Fueled by innocent lust and dizzy miscalculations, this story will keep you howling with surprise.
JoLayne Lucks lives in a town infamous for its suspicious miracles, but she’s still elated when her lottery numbers finally pay off big-$28 million, to be exact. And she has great plans for her fortune: to save a rare piece of Florida paradise from the bulldozers. Only one problem: There’s another winning Lotto ticket, and the people who’ve got it just never learned how to share. When the two militia wannabes swipe JoLayne’s ticket, she enlists an off-the-rails newspaperman to help her track down the trigger-happy creeps and their bewildered hostage, a Hooters waitress. Getting rich quick is never easy…
An eco-terrorist with a trust fund, Twilly Spree is tailing a litterbug in a purple Range Rover with plates that read COJONES. Before he knows it, Spree is up to his cojones in corrupt Florida politicos and some very sick puppies, including a Toyota salesman turned governor, a Republicans-only hooker, and a millionaire developer with a fetish for Barbies. But when Spree learns that the fate of an unspoiled island is at stake, he’s determined not to be outdone. While defending the toads of Toad Island-not to mention one cheerfully oblivious Labrador-he’ll steal a man’s wife, gouge out the eyes of big game trophies, and even risk his life two or three times in this, Hiaasen’s most gleeful muckraking story yet.
However, Honey doesn’t know that she’s being followed by her past: her obsessed former employer Piejack, her still-smitten, drug-running, ex-husband, Perry and their protective and clever twelve-year-old son, Fry.
And to top off the quirky character list of Florida’s Ten Thousand Islands human inhabitants, they are unaware that Dismal Key is being occupied by Sammy Tigertail, a failed alligator wrestler trying desperately to be left alone to his own devices.
Things go awry when Ann-mistaken-for-Cherry is kidnapped from a South Beach hotel by obsessed paparazzo Bang Abbott. Now Cherry’s handlers have to juggle rescuing Ann while keeping her existence a secret from the public and from Cherry herself.
While Cherry’s family/management refuses to report Ann missing and is indifferent about her safety, Ann takes matters into her own hands by contacting Skink, a man who previously rescued her.
Will Bang Abbott achieve his fantasy of a lucrative private photo session with Cherry Pye? Will Cherry sober up in time to lip-synch her way through her concert tour? Will Skink track down Ann DeLusia before Cherry’s motley posse does?
Andrew Yancy, late of the Miami Police and soon-to-be-late of the Monroe County sheriff’s office, has a human arm in his freezer. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, the sheriff might rescue him from his grisly Health Inspector gig (it’s not called the roach patrol for nothing).
Yancy must negotiate an obstacle course of wildly unpredictable events with a crew of even more wildly unpredictable characters, including his just-ex lover, a hot-blooded fugitive from Oklahoma; the twitchy widow of the frozen arm; two avariciously optimistic real-estate speculators; the Bahamian voodoo witch known as the Dragon Queen, whose suitors are blinded unto death by her peculiar charms; Yancy’s new true love, a kinky coroner; and the eponymous bad monkey.
Yancy must negotiate an obstacle course of wildly unpredictable events with a crew of even more wildly unpredictable characters, including his just-ex lover, a hot-blooded fugitive from Oklahoma; the twitchy widow of the frozen arm; two avariciously optimistic real-estate speculators; the Bahamian voodoo witch known as the Dragon Queen, whose suitors are blinded unto death by her peculiar charms; Yancy’s new true love, a kinky coroner; and the eponymous bad monkey.
Chaos ensues as lovable con woman Razor Girl teams up with roach patrol/disgraced detective Andrew Yancy to find the elusive redneck reality TV star, Buck Nance.
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.
