I saw the movie version of this book years ago when it first came out. I remember laughing through a lot of it, just like I did while reading the book. Demi Moore and Burt Reynolds were both an excellent choice for the roles of the two lead characters. Burt Reynolds was truly a hoot playing a sleazy and corrupt Florida politician. Sometimes it's hard for me to envision in my mind what the characters in a book look like. But this time, it was easy, being able to picture both of them as I read.
I'm a huge Carl Hiaasen fan. I will read anything he writes. He makes me laugh more than any other writer I've read. A native Floridian who grew up playing in the nearby swamps and scrubs with his friends, Hiaasen now rails against every developer who wants to rape and bulldoze the land and turn it into shopping malls, golf courses, and condos. Those swamps where he played as a kid are now long gone, replaced by an eight-lane highway and nine shopping malls. He's angry, as he should be, at what this once beautiful state has become.
Each book has a different perspective on environmental or political issues that are happening in Florida, but presented in such an extremely hilarious way. Dave Barry, a fellow Floridian and also another very funny writer, had this to say about Hiaasen, "He presents his rage in an entertaining way." Yep, entertaining he definitely is. His books are filled not only with crooked politicians and greedy land developers and manufacturers who are destroying and polluting the Everglades by dumping their waste into its waters, but also with wacko gun nuts, con artists and scammers, lowlife degenerates who spend their time bilking the welfare system, and every other crazy and whacked-out person who seems to have taken up permanent residence in Florida. It's truly great fun.