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Carl Hiaasen: Fever Beach (USA 2025) From the Publisher: "The afternoon of September first, dishwater-gray and rainy, a man named Dale Figgo picked up a hitchhiker on Gus Grissom Boulevard in Tangelo Falls, Florida. The hitchhiker, who reminded Figgo of Danny DeVito, asked for a lift to the interstate. Figgo said he'd take him there after finishing an errand." 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. Carl Hiaasen: Fever Beach. Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN: 9780593320945 (May, 2025), 384 p., $30.00, eBook $14.99.
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Carl Hiaasen: Fever Beach (UK 2025) From the Publisher: Dale Figgo is the only hate-monger ever to be kicked out of the Proud Boys for being too dumb and incompetent. Now his already messy life is about to get more complicated, thanks to two formidable adversaries. The first is Viva Morales, a clever woman recently taken to the cleaners by her ex-husband, now working at the supposedly philanthropic Mink Foundation and renting a room in Figgo's apartment; the second, Twilly Spree, a millionaire with an anger management problem, especially when it comes to those who deface the environment. Together, Viva and Twilly are plunged into a mystery involving dark money and darker motives, one they are determined to solve. Into this web come a cavalcade of outrageous characters, from corrupt politicians to white power idiots, all of whose fates are bound together via Figgo in a novel that is both a vicious state-of-the-nation satire and a hilarious thriller. From America's most acclaimed satirist and the author of the book that became the Apple+ hit Bad Monkey, Fever Beach is an unmissable skewering of American politics in all its ridiculousness. Carl Hiaasen: Fever Beach. Sphere, ISBN: 9781408724514 (May, 2025), 432 p., £20.00, eBook £11.99.
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