History Creator / CarlHiaasen

Worst News Judgment Ever:

* WorstNewsJudgmentEver: Hiaasen frequently excoriates the media, including his own newspaper, for feeding the public's appetite for meaningless "news", especially celebrity news. In a column for ''The Miami Herald'', he wrote about the media's coverage of the trial and arrest of Creator/OJSimpson: ''The smelly stuff that was once left to the capable vultures at the ''Star'' and the ''Enquirer'' is now front-page fodder in your hometown newspaper and the lead story on the six o'clock news.''

* ''Sick Puppy'': At least seven previous attempts have been made to develop the small "Toad Island" on Florida's Gulf Coast, and most of its current population is made up of ''"casualties from those doomed enterprises"''. The island's unofficial "mayor", Nils Fishback, eagerly invested his life savings to buy 17 vacant lots on the island during the initial hype for the "Towers of Tarpon Island" project, which collapsed as soon as its two principal investors (mid-level Colombian drug kingpins) were arrested and most of their assets on the island seized by the DEA.

* In ''Flush'', the protagonists' grandparents were both performers at Disney World, his grandfather playing Pluto. He hated his job so much that the last straw came when one kid tried (yet again) to tug on his tail, at which point the grandfather ''"turned and booted the kid halfway up Main Street, U.S.A."'' Before the park could fire him, he and his wife quit their jobs and moved to Canada. The protagonist remarks that his family has visited them a handful of times, but his grandfather adamantly refuses to set foot in Florida again, sure that he's on some kind of watch list and Disney has mooks waiting to seize him.

* FakingtheDead: Lampshaded by TheCon in ''Bad Monkey'', who scornfully reflects that plenty of other con artists have tried faking their own deaths to avoid prison time, as if the authorities will simply give up looking for them if they disappear under mysterious circumstances. [[spoiler:This con man, however, thinks he's come up with a ''"foolproof"'' variation, leaving behind his own severed arm as irrefutable proof that he's dead.]]

--->''"[F]or squeezing her boob, she'd [[GroinAttack walloped his nuts]], and for [[WouldHurtAChild clocking her bratty son]], she'd [[MamaBear nearly strangled him]]... Even in his addled state, Piejack comprehended that this was a woman who wouldn't settle easily into the role of obedient homemaker-slash-[[sex slave]]. He'd have to battle for every lousy feel, and she was strong enough to make him pay with blood."''

--->''"[F]or squeezing her boob, she'd [[GroinAttack walloped his nuts]], and for [[WouldHitAChild clocking her bratty son]], she'd [[MamaBear nearly strangled him]]... Even in his addled state, Piejack comprehended that this was a woman who wouldn't settle easily into the role of obedient homemaker-slash-[[sex slave]]. He'd have to battle for every lousy feel, and she was strong enough to make him pay with blood."''
* Bode Gazzer's attitude towards JoLayne Lucks' winning lottery ticket in ''Lucky You''. In his InsaneTrollLogic world, winning one-half of a $28 million jackpot is proof that the government is trying to screw him out of the other half.

* ExpectationLowerer: InUniverse: In ''Razor Girl'', the creators of the RealityShow ''Bayou Brethren'' have intentionally targeted two different fan bases: half are ''"cynically amused by the boorish culture"'' of the stars; the other half identify with it.

*** When they are cast as rural chicken farmers in a ''Series/DuckDynasty'' imitation, they undergo a "makeover" to play up to redneck stereotypes: in addition to their long, flowing beards, they are taught to speak with Cajun accents, shoot guns and ride motorcycles, and have their normally shiny teeth darkened and chipped (their director also prohibits them from brushing while the show is being filmed).
*** During a break in filming, the show's producers note that South Florida, ''"due to its diversity"'' is one of the markets where the show is least popular, and sends the eldest brother, Buck Nance (f.k.a. Matthew Romburg) to make a public appearance in Key West. Not recognizing the demographic of his audience, he starts telling homophobic and racist jokes, starting a riot that sends him fleeing in terror for his life.
*** In an interview, Hiaasen remarked, ''"Being a white guy from the South, I find it amazing that so many TV viewers are enchanted by beards, bad dentistry and moonshine accents. Also there's this false notion that this is a regional phenomenon, when in fact every state in the union has hardcore rednecks. No exceptions."''
* DidNotThinkThisThrough: A common setup for the situations that Hiaasen's characters get themselves into, but it ''really'' stands out as Sammy Tigertail's main character flaw in ''Nature Girl''. Midwestern tourist dies of a heart attack on your airboat tour? Toss him in the Gulf and go on the lam! Some kids from FSU stumble across your hideout? Take the cute one with you when she asks, and scare the others off with a few rifle shots! [[MissingWhiteWomanSyndrome No way that could be misinterpreted!]] That tourist's [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane ghost]] won't leave you alone? Shoot him! Whoops, [[spoiler:you hit that private investigator by mistake]]...

* IdiotBall: In ''Lucky You'', Onus Dean Gillespie, a.k.a. "Chub", when he isn't ''"stoned to the gills"'', displays flashes of common sense that are lost on his partner, Bode Gazzer. These include: 1) winning $14 million in the state lottery is a '''good'' thing, not the [[ConspiracyTheorist latest evidence of the government conspiring against the ordinary white man]]; 2) even though the lottery prize will be paid in installments, and subject to taxes, it is still more money than either of them has ever seen or could ever hope to earn or steal in their lifetimes; 3) robbing and assaulting the owner of the other winning ticket might complicate the collection of their legitimate winnings; and 4) using said owner's stolen credit card to fund their shopping sprees and drunken nights at a Hooters is ''"risky to the point of stupid."'' Unfortunately, because Chub is too lazy to argue against his partner's InsaneTrollLogic, he lets himself get dragged along on these idiotic ventures.

* MachoMasochism: Up to eleven in ''Skin Tight''. Reynaldo Flemm (an {{Expy}} of Geraldo Rivera), the shock television journalist, is less famous for his "skills" as an investigative reporter than his willingness to get beaten up on camera; at one point he confides to his producer that his secret fantasy is to [[RealMenGetShot get shot on camera]], and to continue broadcasting while being loaded into an ambulance. When said producer is nearly killed during a gunfight, Reynaldo is so jealous that he decides to go one better by scheduling a procedure with the crooked doctor the team is investigating, planning for his cameraman to ambush the doctor during the surgery. It doesn't end well.

** In "Flush", Paine Underwood's obsession with shutting down the polluting casino boat ''Coral Queen'' leads to him being thrown in jail and losing his job; his motives are noble, but given that he has a wife and two children, he can't help but appear selfish and irresponsible, and his wife begins to seriously contemplate divorce;
* CigarChomper: Palmer Stoat, the villain of ''Sick Puppy'', fetishizes cigar smoking to an absurd degree, collecting boxes of supposedly authentic Cuban brands and displaying them in his den like tropies, favoring a local cigar bar as his preferred hangout, and pleading for his wife to smoke one while they are having sex, prompting the following exchange:

* CrapsaccharineWorld: A major recurring theme in Hiaasen's novels; South Florida (Miami in particular) has a whole tourism industry devoted to convincing the rest of the country that Florida is sunny, tropical, and sexy, but above all, as safe and predictable as any other middle-of-the-road American town (in the scathing words of renegade columnist Skip Wiley in ''Tourist Season'', the Chamber of Commerce would have you believe this is ''"Newark, with palm trees."''); whenever death, natural disaster, or just plain wackiness spins out of control, as they inevitably do, the FalseUtopia's minders rush to portray it as some kind of aberration in the otherwise tranquil landscape - or worse, as a touch of local "color" that adds to the thrill for any visitors.
** ''Tourist Season'': Sparky Harper, the recently-murdered head of the Miami Chamber of Commerce, was responsible for composing a catchy tourism poster each year with an equally catchy slogan; the protagonist's personal favorite was "The Most Exciting City in America!", deliberately introduced after Miami's worst race riot;

* DeepSouth: sometimes fulfilled, sometimes subverted;
** in ''Double Whammy'', for example, after Clinton "Skink" Tyree resigns as governor, he relocates to the (fictional) Harney County, one of the "reddest" counties in the state; his best friend, Jim Tile, an African-American state trooper, is assigned to the same county, and the protagonist, R.J. Decker, cannot imagine a more miserable place in the state to be a black police officer;

*** When they are cast as rural chicken farmers in a Series/DuckDynasty imitation, they undergo a "makeover" to play up to redneck stereotypes: in addition to their long, flowing beards, they are taught to speak with Cajun accents, shoot guns and ride motorcycles, and have their normally shiny teeth darkened and chipped (their director also prohibits them from brushing while the show is being filmed).

** ''Native Tongue'': Theme park owner Francis X. Kingsbury expresses his contempt for Disney World, and Disney in general, by having an image of Mickey Mouse being fellated by Minnie tattooed on his forearm. After his death, reports from his open casket funeral leads to Disney suing his estate for copyright infringement.

** ''Stormy Weather'': Keith Higstrom's father swore off hunting forever after his teenage son blew off his left ear while trying to shoot down a bald eagle; despite the pain, and losing his job as an air traffic controller, his prevailing emotion was relief, since his son was such a ''"[[RecklessGunUsage pure menace with a gun]]"'' that his father now had a solid excuse to never go hunting with him again;
** ''Flush'': Abbey Underwood is a ''"biter"'', and subdues the much larger "Bull" by sinking her teeth into his earlobe.

** ''Skin Tight'': Blondell Wayne Tatum, after suffering electrolysis burns to his entire face, is nicknamed "Chemo", because he looks as if he is suffering from terminal melanoma, and the side effects of chemotherapy;
** ''Stormy Weather'': Lester Maddox Parsons is nicknamed "Snapper" after his jaw is broken by a police officer and heals thirty-six degrees out of alignment;

** ''Razor Girl'': Benny Krill earns the nickname "Blister" after scalding his buttocks against a pot of hot soup while trying to burglarize the kitchen of a homeless shelter;

*** When Martin Trebeaux employs the ComfortAnimal scam to get himself and Big Noogie preferred seating on an airplane, Big Noogie calls him ''"the scum of the scum"''; though not a pet lover himself, even Big Noogie is disgusted when, after Trebeaux's fake service dog wanders off, Trebeaux shrugs off the loss and proposes picking up a new one on the way to the airport;
*** Big Noogie retrieves the original service dog himself and adopts it; though he does this mainly to please his girlfriend, he finds himself enjoying the complimentary attention from passers-by in Key West and makes sure to order extra bacon at breakfast for the dog;
*** Walking to a meeting on the beach without a beach umbrella, he buys a spare from an elderly tourist couple; they would have given it to him for free, but he insists on paying for it;
* EverybodyDidIt: In ''Skin Tight'', the press is always trying to figure out which of the nine Dade County Commissioners are honest and which ones aren't. The answer? None of them - each of the nine has his or her own set of crooked deals, but they habitually shuffle the votes so that every vote is 5-4, but with different names making up the token opposition each time.

** ''Chomp'': TheDragon being tackled and bitten on the neck by a bat bit victim who thought he was turning into a vampire;

** ''Stormy Weather'': accidentally lighting a KKK Grand Wizard on fire with the torch that was meant to light up the cross;

* VicePresidentWho: In ''Double Whammy'', Clinton Three chooses to resettle in Harney County after resigning as governor because it is one of the least politically active counties in the state, and therefore no one will recognize him - according to one poll, fewer than 5% of the county's residents can correctly name a single Vice President of the U.S. in the entirety of the nation's history.

* GoodPeopleHaveGoodSex: Happens pretty regularly (bordering on OnceAnEpisode in some of the early books).
** Partially deconstructed in ''Skinny Dip''. Chaz Perrone is [[SexGod good in bed]]--even after [[spoiler:his incompetent attempt to murder her]], Joey still admits this--but she's well aware that he only cared about her enjoyment as a way of feeding his own ego, and is pleasantly surprised by her new physical relationship with the protagonist, Mick Stranahan:
---> While Mick wasn't as robotically durable as her husband, he was far more attentive, tender and enterprising. For Joey it was something of a revelation. With Mick, there was no furtive peeking at his own clenched buttocks in the mirror, no collegial exhorting of his manhood, no self-congratulatory rodeo yells when he was finished. In Chaz's embrace Joey had often felt like a pornographic accessory, one of those rubber mail-order vaginas. With Mick, she was an actual participant; a lover. The orgasms had been quake-like with Chaz, but then he would immediately demand to hear all about them; he was always more interested in the reviews than in the intimacies. With Mick, the climax was no less intense, but the aftermath was sweeter, because he never broke the mood by asking her to grade his performance.

* AwesomeMcCoolname:
** ''Native Tongue'': Mafioso Frankie "The Ferret" King was named after singer Frankie Lane, but after entering the Witness Protection, eagerly changed his name to "Francis Xavier Kingsbury", believing the middle initial "X" to be an especially "classy touch";
** ''Nature Girl'': The protagonist's ex-husband is dating a young woman named Debbie who insists on being addressed as "Sienna";

** In ''Skink - No Surrender'', Richard remembers his father saying that humans are the only species in which true {{Evil}} occurs - violence is a common means of survival in the animal world, but humans are the only species who find pleasure in it.

* KarmicJackpot: In ''Razor Girl'', Andrew Yancy notices a stray dog wander into traffic and dashes after it; it turns out to belong to Mafia ''capo'' "Big Noogie" Aeola, who is not a pet lover himself, but is wary enough of his girlfriend's reaction if the dog was lost that he promises Yancy a future favor; Yancy calls it in to finally secure ownership of the lot neighboring his home, on which the previous owners have been trying to build eyesore ''"McMansions"''.

** ''Razor Girl'': As part of his act as a RealityShow ''"redneck chicken plucker"'', Matthew Romburg/Buck Nance gives phony sermons at a phony church to a phony congregation; some of his "sermons" are too coarse and racist even for the show, so instead they get bootlegged on YouTube and attract plenty of views from the show's more racist fans. To Matthew/Buck, it is all fake, and he is genuinely horrified when his self-proclaimed biggest fan decides to "impress" him by committing a hate crime that kills an innocent Muslim tourist;

* VillainWithGoodPublicity: A fair amount of the CorruptPolitician's, CorruptCorporateExecutive's and the like, as well as pop star Cleo Rio, and the JerkJock from the backstory of ''Double Whammy'' who tried to rob Decker and got away with claiming unprovoked assault when Decker caught, stopped and hit him.

* MachoMasochism: UpToEleven in ''Skin Tight''. Reynaldo Flemm (an {{Expy}} of Geraldo Rivera), the shock television journalist, is less famous for his "skills" as an investigative reporter than his willingness to get beaten up on camera; at one point he confides to his producer that his secret fantasy is to [[RealMenGetShot get shot on camera]], and to continue broadcasting while being loaded into an ambulance. When said producer is nearly killed during a gunfight, Reynaldo is so jealous that he decides to go one better by scheduling a procedure with the crooked doctor the team is investigating, planning for his cameraman to ambush the doctor during the surgery. It doesn't end well.

* {{Up To Eleven}}: An InUniverse example in ''Razor Girl'': Matthew Romburg and his brothers have been coached to embody a series of rural DeepSouth stereotypes to sell their images as "Buck Nance and the Brawlers" on a RealityShow taking place on a Louisiana chicken farm; Matthew/Buck's self-proclaimed biggest fan, Benny "Blister" Krill, has taken every one of these stereotypes and played it up to the maximum in an attempt to impress Buck:
** The Nance "compound" on the farm has an outdoor shower stall, so Blister thinks nothing of leaving the door to the bathroom wide open while he takes a ''"cacophonous dump"'', treating Buck and Lane Coolman to every sight, sound and smell;
** Except for Buck's, the Nance brothers' wives have all been scripted to act as secondary characters; while watching the latest episode, Blister - thinking he's about to appear on the show as Buck's long-lost twin, openly speculates on which of his new phony sisters-in-law is most "hot and doable";
** The Romburgs/Nances [[DoesntLikeGuns don't like guns]], but are coached to shoot them on camera; Blister steals a pistol from a parked car and casually shoots a mailbox on a public street, just to get used to the feel of shooting;
** In his ''"bootleg diatribes"'' at the show's phony church, Buck has inveighed against Muslims, blacks, and homosexuals; driving down the streets of Key West, Blister sticks his head out the window and screams full-throated slurs at a Hasidic family, and then at a male couple holding hands.

A native of perhaps one of the more... [[OnlyInFlorida eccentric]] states in the Union, Carl Hiaasen has built his career writing both on the fictional and real-life exploits of the citizens of Florida. Known for a strong sense of black and satirical humor, many of his novels involve situations that he insists isn't that much of a stretch for his fellow Floridians: from a crook being beaten with a frozen lizard to a particularly ornery and sexually deviant dolphin to a female lead that continually has two songs clashing in her head, his novels are filled with all manner of colorful individuals. Notwithstanding the more colorful of their type and behavior, Hiaasen's books usually contain recognizable yet unstereotyped characters that are often criminal, eccentric, mentally ill or challenged, etc., yet still make endearing protagonists, whereas his villains are the sort of individuals for whom his imaginative fates can be seen as richly deserved.