NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Take a hilarious ride through the warped politics and mayhem of the human environment, and the human heart, in this "screwball delight so full of bright, deft, beautifully honed humor.... You'd follow [Hiaasen] anywhere." — The New York Times Chaz Perrone might be the only marine scientist in the world who doesn’t know which way the Gulf Stream runs. He might also be the only one who went into biology just to make a killing, and now he’s found a way–doctoring water samples so that a ruthless agribusiness tycoon can continue illegally dumping fertilizer into the endangered Everglades. When Chaz suspects that his wife, Joey, has figured out his scam, he pushes her overboard from a cruise liner into the night-dark Atlantic. Unfortunately for Chaz, his wife doesn’t die in the fall. Clinging blindly to a bale of Jamaican pot, Joey Perrone is plucked from the ocean by former cop and current loner Mick Stranahan. Instead of rushing to the police and reporting her husband’s crime, Joey decides to stay dead and (with Mick’s help) screw with Chaz until he screws himself. As Joey haunts and taunts her homicidal husband, as Chaz’s cold-blooded cohorts in pollution grow uneasy about his ineptitude and increasingly erratic behavior, as Mick Stranahan discovers that six failed marriages and years of island solitude haven’t killed the reckless romantic in him, we’re taken on a full-throttle, pure Hiaasen ride. "A screwball delight so full of bright, deft, beautifully honed humor.... You'd follow [Hiaasen] anywhere." —The New York Times "A whopping cannonball splash of fun.... Hooray for Hiaasen’s world." — Los Angeles Times “ Barking mad.... Here Hiaasen is at his best. " —The Baltimore Sun "It doesn’t do Carl Hiaasen justice to call him Florida’s funniest state product.... Hiaasen is something bigger: a superb national satirist [and] a great American writer. " — Entertainment Weekly "Hilarious.... Like the characters, the plot is a hoot, but the real laughs are in Hiaasen's telling." — People (Critics' Choice) "Confident and determinedly wacky.... Skinny Dip thrives when Hiaasen and his heroes let their prankster spirits run amok.... Riotous fun." — A.V. Club "Bitingly satirical, sublimely zany, and deeply satisfying." — Kirkus Reviews "Hiaasen's signature mix of hilariously over-the-top villains, lovable innocents, and righteous indignation at what mankind has done to his beloved Florida wilderness is all present in riotous abundance.... Hiaasen's books are so enjoyable it's always a sad moment when they end." — Publishers Weekly "Another delirious romp through the swamps of South Florida from the irrepressible Carl Hiaasen.... A corker, chock-full of belly laughs and blistering truths." — Booklist (starred review) Carl Hiaasen was born and raised in Florida. He is the author of ten previous novels, including Sick Puppy, Lucky You, Stormy Weather, Basket Case , and, for young readers, Hoot . He also writes a regular column for the Miami Herald . One At the stroke of eleven on a cool April night, a woman named Joey Perrone went overboard from a luxury deck of the cruise liner M.V. Sun Duchess. Plunging toward the dark Atlantic, Joey was too dumbfounded to panic. I married an asshole, she thought, knifing headfirst into the waves. The impact tore off her silk skirt, blouse, panties, wristwatch and sandals, but Joey remained conscious and alert. Of course she did. She had been co-captain of her college swim team, a biographical nugget that her husband obviously had forgotten. Bobbing in its fizzy wake, Joey watched the gaily lit Sun Duchess continue steaming away at twenty nautical miles per hour. Evidently only one of the other 2,049 passengers was aware of what had happened, and he wasn’t telling anybody. Bastard, Joey thought. She noticed that her bra was down around her waist, and she wriggled free of it. To the west, under a canopy of soft amber light, the coast of Florida was visible. Joey began to swim. The water of the Gulf Stream was slightly warmer than the air, but a brisk northeasterly wind had kicked up a messy and uncomfortable chop. Joey paced herself. To keep her mind off sharks, she replayed the noteworthy events of the week-long cruise, which had begun almost as unpromisingly as it had ended. The Sun Duchess had departed Port Everglades three hours late because a raccoon had turned up berserk in the pastry kitchen. One of the chefs had wrestled the frothing critter into a sixty-gallon tin of guava custard before it had shredded the man’s jowls and humped snarling to the depths of the ship. A capture team from Broward Animal Control had arrived, along with health inspectors and paramedics. Evacuated passengers were appeased with rum drinks and canapés. Later, while reboarding, Joey had passed the Animal Control officers trudging empty-handed down the gangplank. “I bet they couldn’t catch it,” she’d whispered