The only trace of the first victim was his Shriner's fez washed up on the Miami beach. The second victim, the head of the city's chamber of commerc...
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Apr 26, 2008
Sarah
rated it: 
One of Carl Hiaasen's best! After strange disappearences and an amputated man in a suitcase shows up, Brian Keyes, private investigator, is intrigued. He and his cop buddy, Al Garcia, get on the case of Los Noches de Deciembre (The nights of December)who are environmental activists gone bad. After a string of murders from the Los Noches de Deciembre, Brian Keyes discovers there will be a grand finale-- which includes a girl he's been crushing on. Twists keep this book fluid and suspenseful, maki
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Feb 05, 2008
James
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A team of unlikely misfits make for some serious humor in what many Florida natives probably secretly dream about, doing away with the tourists. I found myself actually laughing out loud with Hiaasen's sharp and witty humor. The schemes of the antagonists to poetically do-in the tourist market for Southern Florida were quite inventive. Let me just say, part of me was rooting for the alligator. Tourist Season being the first Hiaasen I read I was not at all disappointed. In fact it was quite the o
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Sep 10, 2011
April the Cheshire Meow
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I always am a little disconcerted by Carl Hiaasen books because he confounds me. I never know where he is going with his story. The tone of his books in particular leave me wondering for the first 50 or so pages: is this supposed to be funny? A satire? A detective genre? Serious and sad? A thriller? A quick beach read? Tourist Season struck me the same as other books by CH. Bad things happen to innocent people as well as characters who are obviously to be booed whenever they appear. Since most
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Jan 06, 2011
Mika
rated it: 
Mummoja alligaattorien ruoaksi
Carl Hiaasenin postomoderni kioskiviihdedekkari sijoittuu Floridaan ja lähemmin Miamiin sekä enimmäkseen lähiseuduille.
Päähenkilöinä ovat marlowemainen yksityisetsivä Brian Keyes, Sunin toimittaja Skip Wiley sekä jälkimmäisen terrorijärjestön "La Noche di Deciembren" ydinjoukko eli futaaja Wilson, intiaani sekä kuubalainen pakolainen. Kolmiodraamaa on saatu aikaiseksi, sillä Keyesin entinen naisystävä majailee Skipin luona.
Kir More...
Carl Hiaasenin postomoderni kioskiviihdedekkari sijoittuu Floridaan ja lähemmin Miamiin sekä enimmäkseen lähiseuduille.
Päähenkilöinä ovat marlowemainen yksityisetsivä Brian Keyes, Sunin toimittaja Skip Wiley sekä jälkimmäisen terrorijärjestön "La Noche di Deciembren" ydinjoukko eli futaaja Wilson, intiaani sekä kuubalainen pakolainen. Kolmiodraamaa on saatu aikaiseksi, sillä Keyesin entinen naisystävä majailee Skipin luona.
Kir More...
Dec 03, 2010
Tom
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Growing up in South Florida, you realize that there are certain unwritten rules for living here. Some are obvious ("Thou shalt own at least one Jimmy Buffett album.") Others are learned from experience ("Thou shalt add thirty minutes of drive time to any location during Snow Bird season.") One of my favorites, though, I only learned about five years ago:
"Carl Hiaasen understands our screwed up state, and thou shalt read his novels for insight."
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"Carl Hiaasen understands our screwed up state, and thou shalt read his novels for insight."
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Jul 27, 2011
Sherrie
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This is the first time I've ever read this author. I really enjoyed his way of writing. Lots of details and information without getting bogged down with them. This book is about a guy Skip Wily, who thinks all the tourists in Florida should leave and let the state go back to wilderness. He's a reporter for a newspaper, likeable and poplar, so when he goes off the deep end and starts his own revolutionary group to get the tourists to move, it kind of surprises a few people. As tourists start comi
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Aug 09, 2011
Kara
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We enter the zany world of the Florida crime novel at its inception with this Carl Hiaasen debut. In later works by Hiaasen, Leonard, Dorsey, and others, there is a sly world-weariness, a black humor tickled by the far-gone condition of the South Florida mentality. This book was written on the cusp of the cynical hilarity to follow.
Tourist Season begins when a typical tourist, an aging Shriner, disappears off a beach. Next, the body of a prominent Miami man is found stuffed in a s More...
Tourist Season begins when a typical tourist, an aging Shriner, disappears off a beach. Next, the body of a prominent Miami man is found stuffed in a s More...
Jan 06, 2009
Janelle
rated it:
Carl Hiaasen's works are usually very funny, intelligent, witty, creative, with a happy ending. What could you want more from an entertaining lite read? The imaginative characters, the adventure, the great use of irony and sarcasm, he keeps you guessing how things could possibly all work out for the best, and they do in his books which I like. I always find good qualities to admire in his heros, and can easily despise the villians, cheering when they meet their demise...in whatever creative f
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Apr 16, 2009
Erin
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Carl Hiaasen's supervisors at the Miami Herald must have been nervous about him publishing this book. After reading so many of his books, it's quite obvious that he's living vicariously through his villain Skip Wiley, a newspaper columnist who's gone off the deep end and decided to start killing tourists in order to scare them away, effectively emptying Florida and allowing it to revert to nature. Oh yes, and using his knowledge of the media to attract attention to his cause. Skip was the fir
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Apr 08, 2009
George
rated it: 
If you haven't read anything by Carl Hiaasen, you should pick up one of his novels right away. Ironic, irreverent and funny as hell, Hiaasen writes about South Florida and is a columnist for the Miami Herald.
Adoption of environmental warriors as major characters and the destruction of the natural world as a problem space has become a veritable cottage industry among fiction writers. Mixing violence with humor, Tourist Season is a send-up of greed, sex and obsession and is not to be More...
Adoption of environmental warriors as major characters and the destruction of the natural world as a problem space has become a veritable cottage industry among fiction writers. Mixing violence with humor, Tourist Season is a send-up of greed, sex and obsession and is not to be More...
Dec 17, 2011
Dave
rated it: 
It works...to a degree. Hiaasen works to a formula: single/separated/divorced male stuck with an adventure/challenge is forced to assert himself during difficult times. Potentially there is always something more there but Hiaasen is obsessed with a sort of libertarian solution that , in this case, warps the novel . If things are so bad, why not destory it and begin again?
It's as American as apple pie. Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan...offers a sort of logic that is played out in Florida. More...
It's as American as apple pie. Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan...offers a sort of logic that is played out in Florida. More...
Apr 13, 2009
Joshua
rated it:
My book slump is over! I went about 3 weeks without finishing a single book and it did serious damage to my 2009 pace.
Tourist Season is my third Hiaasen book of 2009 and it's another fun read, full of oddball characters in Florida. They are all kind of the same--multiple characters wind in and out of the story, eccentrics, funny situations. As I said before, reminds me some of Elmore Leonard--which is a very good thing.
This novel involves revolutionaries who want to drive o More...
Tourist Season is my third Hiaasen book of 2009 and it's another fun read, full of oddball characters in Florida. They are all kind of the same--multiple characters wind in and out of the story, eccentrics, funny situations. As I said before, reminds me some of Elmore Leonard--which is a very good thing.
This novel involves revolutionaries who want to drive o More...
May 03, 2009
Kevin L.
rated it:
I've read a couple of young adult books by Hiaasen, but this is my first adult read and I LOVED it! He's hilarious in his sense of humor, his twisted view on people and it was a quick paced read all around.
In Tourist Season, he writes of a disgruntled columnist who plots murderous revenge on the seasonal visitors to Florida. Along with a copule of his misfit friends, they hope to return Florida to it's natural state of pristine beauty.
The madcap murder, violence and in More...
In Tourist Season, he writes of a disgruntled columnist who plots murderous revenge on the seasonal visitors to Florida. Along with a copule of his misfit friends, they hope to return Florida to it's natural state of pristine beauty.
The madcap murder, violence and in More...
Feb 08, 2009
Mikem
rated it:
Someone once called "Nancy" the perfect comic strip because before you decide you're not going to read it, you already have.
I've picked up Hiaasen's books because they are a quick read on a plane - a guilty pleasure, but not so guilty that I wouldn't pick up another. The screwball characters seemed forced at times and the plots gimmicky, but they are well-written and funny.
In Tourist Season, Hiaasen's humor is intact, but the characters aren't overshadowed by More...
I've picked up Hiaasen's books because they are a quick read on a plane - a guilty pleasure, but not so guilty that I wouldn't pick up another. The screwball characters seemed forced at times and the plots gimmicky, but they are well-written and funny.
In Tourist Season, Hiaasen's humor is intact, but the characters aren't overshadowed by More...
Jun 26, 2011
Barbara
rated it:
My first Carl Hiaasen novel... Interesting... totally different than anything I've read. Honestly, I'm not sure what to think. I liked it, but I'm not sure I loved it. It will definitely stick in my head like a Coen Brother's movie, and I suspect I'll like it more on reflection.
I didn't find myself "vested" in the main character until late in the story... but I had definite reactions to his quirky characters. I was actually rooting for a few to die torturous deaths. If I cou More...
I didn't find myself "vested" in the main character until late in the story... but I had definite reactions to his quirky characters. I was actually rooting for a few to die torturous deaths. If I cou More...
Sep 17, 2009
Jackie
rated it:
A humorous, but frightning mystery with a serious environmental message. Journalist, Skip Wiley, a white native of Florida can't tolerate what northern immigrants have done to his now over-populated state of Florida. He puts together a terrorist team consisting of an anti-Castro Cuban, a black ex-football player, and a casino rich Seminole Indian. Each has his reason for joining in on the murders of their hunting 'tourist season.' Hiaasen was creative to put together three totally different
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Jul 11, 2011
Richard
rated it:
Frankly I was bored with this novel for the first four chapters. Eventually I started to understand the story line and it became a can't put down type of novel. The main idea of the novel is that tourists and those who go from tourist to homeowners can inspire real estate people to wreck havoc on the environment as they try to make a fast buck. The villians in this novel are basically people who want to protect nature from those who want to destroy it. Their solutions, are what makes this an int
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May 15, 2009
Jim
rated it:
This book started out slow and confusing and got slower and more confusing the further I read. I was going to rate this a one or two star, however, about three-fourths of the way through it started making sense and the novel got a lot better. I wasn't all that happy with the ending. No one does Hitchcock like Hitchcock. The book portrayed the police and reporters as inept. I could understand the part about the reporters being bumbling idiots if this book were written today, however, its copy
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Oct 25, 2011
Laura
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
Dec 23, 2011
Ensiform
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Set in Miami, this satiric novel of eco-terrorism concerns a newspaper reporter turned private eye who is pitted against a former colleague turned leader of a terrorist cell. Skip Wiley, the crazed ringleader, wants to return Florida to the Seminoles and everglades by driving tourists out through terror.
It's lightweight, of course, but it’s certainly amusing, has colorful characters and, with its sharp satire of everything from tourism to race relations to the newsroom, makes high ent More...
It's lightweight, of course, but it’s certainly amusing, has colorful characters and, with its sharp satire of everything from tourism to race relations to the newsroom, makes high ent More...
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Dec 05, 2011
Nicole
rated it:
I originally picked up Carl Hiaasen because his covers are just so pretty (I know, I know... never judge a book by its cover, but I do anyway) and because the summary sounded really funny. However, that is not really what I got. Sure, lots of crazy, weird things happen (I mean a guy gets murdered with a toy alligator... can you get any weirder than that???), but it just wasn't funny. In fact, toward the end I kept waiting for something great and funny to happen, but the ending was kinda depre
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Sep 04, 2010
Pf87
rated it:
A charismatic, sympathetic villain is nothing new in stories like this, but what makes Skip Wiley fun to read about is the suspicion that maybe the author identifies more with him than with any of the protagonists. I highly doubt Carl Hiaasen is a terrorist, but the gusto with which Wiley's newspaper columns are written and the flashy editorial-cartoon-come-to-life antics he pulls certainly suggest that Hiaasen loved writing him. There's also a barely-disguised apathy behind the protagonist's ac
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Oct 12, 2008
mama/patty
rated it:
A fun read. I got this book to read when I was on my way to spend a week with on the road Randy in Florida. Since I was going to different locations along that coast, I thought what better book to read than one about the killing of tourist to Florida – Miami in particular. I was right. Even though there is a dark side to Tourist Season. It is also funny in an ironic way, as well as suspenseful. The best part of the whole experience of flying there was getting to meet Minnie Pearl when I was wa
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Jun 09, 2008
Maurean
rated it:
While I love everything Hiaasen, this was probably one of my most favorite of the lot.
The tale begins when Sparky Harper, head of Miami’s Chamber of Commerce, is found dead, stuffed into a suitcase with his legs cut off and a toy rubber alligator lodged in his throat, and that is just the beginning... Now Brian Keyes, reporter turned private eye, is hired by the Miami Sun’s editor to track down his missing ace reporter, Skip Wiley (Jimmy Buffett’s “The Ballad of Skip Wiley” off his “ More...
The tale begins when Sparky Harper, head of Miami’s Chamber of Commerce, is found dead, stuffed into a suitcase with his legs cut off and a toy rubber alligator lodged in his throat, and that is just the beginning... Now Brian Keyes, reporter turned private eye, is hired by the Miami Sun’s editor to track down his missing ace reporter, Skip Wiley (Jimmy Buffett’s “The Ballad of Skip Wiley” off his “ More...
Oct 01, 2009
Davis
rated it:
I love an author who can tickle my funny bone. Carl Hiaasen has consistently done it for me and this book was no exception.
The humor is dark & satirical and the characters and situations are outrageous. As always, it was another page turner for me. This book is pure escape. It would be a wonderful book for taking on vacation. You are warned. You might have a hard time tearing yourself away from it.
Davis Aujourd'hui, author of "The Misadventures of Sister Mary Olga Fo
The humor is dark & satirical and the characters and situations are outrageous. As always, it was another page turner for me. This book is pure escape. It would be a wonderful book for taking on vacation. You are warned. You might have a hard time tearing yourself away from it.
Davis Aujourd'hui, author of "The Misadventures of Sister Mary Olga Fo
Nov 04, 2009
Chris
rated it:
Love this section:
"Jesus Bernal had once held the title of defense minister for a rabid anti-Castro terrorist group called the Seventh of July Movement. The group was named for the day in 1972 when its founders had launched a costly and ill-fated attack on a Cuban gunboat off the Isle of Pines. In later years an acrimonious dispute had arisen over the name of the group, with some members claiming that the Isle of Pines attack had actually occurred on the sixth of July, and demanding More...
"Jesus Bernal had once held the title of defense minister for a rabid anti-Castro terrorist group called the Seventh of July Movement. The group was named for the day in 1972 when its founders had launched a costly and ill-fated attack on a Cuban gunboat off the Isle of Pines. In later years an acrimonious dispute had arisen over the name of the group, with some members claiming that the Isle of Pines attack had actually occurred on the sixth of July, and demanding More...
Jan 03, 2009
Heycynh
rated it:
He used humor and an extremely interesting storyline to present the real concerns many Floridians have about their once beautiful state. The problem of paradise being overrun by concrete, over-population, snowbirds and diminishing habitat for so many creatures, breaks the hearts of all Florida natives. It was an interesting way to bring awareness to the feelings many native Floridians share; the saddness of the loss of our state as it was.
Jan 08, 2009
Cecilia
rated it:
One of Hiaasen’s first great books…this one is a keeper. A fabulously funny, entertaining yarn about a nutty newspaper reporter who goes a little “mad” one day and decides to come to his own solution about the tourist problem in South Florida. This solution is not exactly the kind of thing the chamber of commerce would condone. In usual Hiaasen fashion, nothing is too wild and crazy for these characters. A truly fun read!
Jan 09, 2012
Marjorie
rated it:
This is my first Carl Hiaason book, it was assigned by my Murder Mystery Book Club. This is his first book written in the 80's somewhat data with a meandering plot. The only saving grace is the the last chapter was quite good.
The plot centers around a newspaper columnist turned terrorist. Skip Wiley is a native of Florida who turns to violence ( a lot of senseless killing) to discourage tourist from coming to Florida.
The plot centers around a newspaper columnist turned terrorist. Skip Wiley is a native of Florida who turns to violence ( a lot of senseless killing) to discourage tourist from coming to Florida.
