Another instant classic from Carl Hiaasenโlaugh-out-loud funny, tackling the current chaotic and polarized American culture (following in the path of Squeeze Me), with two wonderful Hiaasen heroes
โThe afternoon of September first, dishwater-gray and rainy, a man named Dale Figgo picked up a hitchhiker on Gus Grissom Boulevard in Tangelo Shores, Florida. The hitchhiker, who reminded Figgo of Danny DeVito, asked for a lift to the interstate. Figgo said heโd take him there after finishing an errand.โ
Thus begins Fever Beach, with an errand that leadsโin pure Hiaasen-styleโinto 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 Figgoโs apartment because thereโs 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 councilmanโs party barge, and three years after his divorce.
Viva and Twilly are plunged into a mysteryโinvolving dark money and darker motivesโthey are determined to solve, and become entangled in a world populated by some of Hiaasenโs most outrageous characters: Claude and Electra Minkโbillionaire philanthropists with way too much plastic surgery and a secret right-wing agendaโand Congressman Clure Boyetteโwho dreams of being Floridaโs (and maybe Americaโs) 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 Kristiansonโa Scandinavian agnostic injured when Figgo thinks heโs a Jewish threat to humanity and runs him over with his car; Jonas OnusโFiggoโs 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.