Various unscrupulous characters who want to develop an island off the Florida coast are pitted against a couple of unorthodox eco-warriors: one is an ex-governor of Florida who lives off the land, the other a son of a real-estate developer who has renounced his heritage and chases car-drivers who throw litter out of their windows.

Hmm, seems like each Hiaasen book I read is worse than the previous one. This, like Stormy Weather was over-long and not as funny as it wanted to be. The ex-governor, "Skink" was in that book too (although I'd forgotten about that). You could see that there might be some comic potential: for example, one of the baddies made a hobby of listening to tapes of 911 calls, and this could have been funny, but they rarely raised a smile.

The characterisation was very two-dimensional - people were either baddies, in which case they were totally venal, uncaring, out to destroy the environment etc., or they were the goodies: not interested in money, breaking the rules only for a higher good, not killing anyone (some of the bad guys die but it's because they kill one another).

And boy did it seem long - twelve CDs with loads of rambling in it. Contrasted to The Prestige, which I'd read before this one, and which I kept wanting to skip back to check out what had happened, in this book my attention would wander for minutes and I'd come back to find I'd not missed anything at all.

Not recommended.

Completed : 23-Oct-2012 (audiobook)