Native Tongue - Carl Hiaasen

Carl Hiaasen is one of my favourite comic writers, not only is his satire biting and his stories engaging but he often has an environmental slant to his work which I find appealing. Native Tongue is no different as it is based in Florida and focuses on Hiaasen horror at the destruction of the natural habitat in Florida in favour of golf and property developments alongside the ever expanding number of theme parks riding on the back of the Disney attractions. Not only does he write fiction on the subject but as an investigative journalist he also has some practical experience of such happenings and will attest to the view that often fact is stranger (or more worrying) than ...

Think: FLORIDA! What comes to your mind? Palm trees, sandy beaches, turquoise water? That wouldn´t be wrong but according to Carl Hiaasen (pronounced: hiya-sun) only one side of the medal and certainly not the side he´s interested in. Hiaasen, born (in 1953) and raised in Southern Florida, a (good-looking!) journalist of the Miami Herald, is more interested in exposing schemes to destroy Florida´s ecosystem and natural beauty by bulldozing hitherto untouched land to build theme parks, holiday resorts and/or golf courses. He fights (from the net) ´greedy businessmen, corrupt politicians, dumb blondes, apathetic retirees, intellectually challenged tourists and ...

A Hiaasen high-water mark (along with 'Stormy Weather' and 'Striptease'), featuring an enormously vituperative assault on the gaudy pleasures of Florida's theme-park industry. Joe Winder is PR man for the 'Amazing Kingdom of Thrills', run by a former gangster 'Francis X. Kingsbury. Bodies are piling up as the theme park owner conspires to swindle endangered species funds out of the US government by inventing a rare animal, and then trying to save it - and Winder accidentally finds out. This is the novel in which an absurdly incompetent heavy, security guard at the theme park and steroids addict, wrenches his own leg off when ...