Andrew Yancy-late from the Miami Police and soon-to-be-late of the Monroe State sheriff’s office-has a human arm in his freezer. There’s a logical (Hiaasenian) explanation for your, but not for how and just why it parted from its shadowy owner. Yancy feels the boating-accident/shark-luncheon description is full of openings, and if he can prove murder, the sheriff might rescue him from his grisly Health Inspector gig (it’s not really called the roach patrol for nothing). But first-this being Hiaasen country- about Bad Monkey Yancy must negotiate an obstacle span of wildly unstable events using a crew of even more wildly unpredictable people, including his just-ex fan, a hot-blooded fugitive from Kansas; the twitchy widow from the frozen arm; two avariciously positive real-estate speculators; the Bahamian voodoo witch known as the Dragon Queen, whose suitors are blinded unto loss of life by her peculiar charms; Yancy’s fresh real love, a kinky coroner; as well as the eponymous poor monkey, who with hilarious aplomb earns his place among Carl Hiaasen’s best characters.

Here’s Hiaasen doing what he will better than other people: spinning an account at once fiercely pointed and wickedly funny in which the greedy, the corrupt, and the degraders of what’s remaining of pristine Florida-now, of the Bahamas as well-get their comeuppance in mordantly clever, diabolically entertaining fashion.