KARL HIAASEN

Honey Santana has a scheme to help rid the world of irresponsibility, indifference, and dinnertime sales calls. She's taking rude, gullible telemarketer Boyd Shreave and his less-than-enthusiastic mistress, Eugenie into the wilderness of Florida's Ten Thousand Islands for a gentle lesson in civility. What she doesn't know is that she's being followed by her Honey-obsessed former employer, Piejack. And he doesn't know he's being followed by Honey's still-smitten former drug-running ex-husband, Perry, and their wise-and-protective-way-beyond-his-years twelve-year-old-son, Fry. And when they all pull up on Dismal Key, they don't know they're intruding on Sammy Tigertail, a failed alligator wrestler, trying like hell to be a hermit...

When Mrs Starch, the most feared biology teacher in Florida, goes missing during a school trip to the Black Vine Swamp, her class is secretly relieved. The school principal tries to cover it up as a 'family emergency', but Nick and Marta just aren't convinced. They think it's much more likely to have something to do with Smoke, the local troublemaker - whose run-ins with Mrs Starch are infamous - and decide to do some investigating of their own. But there's more going on in Black Vine Swamp than either one of them could guess. And Nick and Marta must see off an eccentric eco-avenger, a stuffed rat named Chelsea, a crooked oil prospector, a singing substitute teacher, and an angry Florida panther before they really begin to see the big picture.