Let's take a look at a male author here for a change. Carl Hiaasen is one of my favorite authors. He's brilliant, witty and so adorably bitter and jaded about this wonderland that is Florida. I've read each and every one of his novels (and there are MANY o choose from), and have yet to be disappointed. I started with Strip Tease...which yes, was turned into a starring vehicle movie for Demi Moore and her implants. I saw the movie...thought it quite...well...sucky, but then I read the book. THEN I totally GOT IT! And now I love the movie. Go figure. O.K...where was I? Oh yeah...Skinny Dip...a TOTALLY good read for the summer time (as is Strip Tease as a matter of fact).

Here's an Amazon review for you and yours:

"Charles "Chaz" Perrone fancies himself a take-charge kind of guy. So when this "biologist by default" suspects that his curvaceous wife, Joey, has stumbled onto a profitable pollution scam he's running on behalf of Florida agribusiness mogul Red Hammernut, he sets out right away to solve the problem--by heaving Joey off the deck of a luxury cruise liner and into the Atlantic Ocean, far from Key West. But--whoops!--Joey, a former swimming champ, doesn't drown. Instead, as Carl Hiaasen tells in his 10th adult novel, Skinny Dip, she makes her way back to shore, thanks both to a wayward bale of Jamaican marijuana and lonerish ex-cop Mick Stranahan (Skin Tight, 1989), and then launches a bogus blackmail campaign that's guaranteed to drive her lazy, libidinous hubby into a self-protective frenzy.

You've got to hand it to Hiaasen: He's perfected a formula for crisply written, satirical crime fiction that makes the best use of imaginatively repulsive villains, as well as less thoroughly venal scoundrels and victims who ultimately overcome their antagonists, all while stumping for the preservation of Florida's environment, particularly the Everglades. In Skinny Dip, we find Chaz (who'd rather be golfing than puttering around the "hot, buggy, funky-smelling and treacherous" reaches of nature) falsifying water samples to help Hammernut turn the 'Glades into "God’s septic tank." That scheme, though, is endangered not just by Joey's sudden disappearance, but by the suspicions of a python-loving police detective and Chaz's own outstanding inability to tame his Viagra-enhanced tumescence. Even by assigning Chaz a baby-sitter--the hulking, hirsute, and painkiller-addicted Tool--Hammernut can't keep his pet biologist out of trouble. As Joey and Stranahan unfold their revenge plot, and Tool's conscience grows in competition with Chaz's ego, the reader can only marvel at the extent of the train wreck ahead."

Guys will dig this author as much as gals. There is plenty of the macho stuff...and the south Florida setting is great for those of you not located close to sandy beaches and tacky t-shirt shops (not as prevalent as some would have you believe in these parts). So get up off your butt, get to a library or book store and check out Carl Hiaasen.

You will SO thank me!