Tourist Season

¡Viva Las Noches de Diciembre, Viva!

Tourist Season, published in 1986 is a dystopian novel set more than 37 years in the future and is perfectly prescient of present day Florida.

This is also 10 years BEFORE Rupert Murdock created the far-right-wing, fascist propaganda network Fox. Fox "news" programs - affectionately and more properly known as Faux News - are the most watched in the US and functions as sort of a cross between Pravda and the National Enquirer although the former may also owned and operated by Murdock since its pro-Kremlin stances have long been established. Granted, something like 150 million Americans prefer alternative facts; Insurrectionists and the "Covid is a hoax" crowd (however, if the global Coronavirus pandemic show more is not a hoax, those people who opt to drink bleach and take horse dewormer instead). And as I write this, three former Fox executives recently expressed regret for helping Rupert Murdoch build his US broadcasting business, describing Fox News as a "disinformation machine." Ummm, okay, but you're about 30 years too late, that bus has sailed.

Cable networks like Fox are licensed as entertainment so they are not bound to report any actual facts on programs they claim to be news, hence, Faux News. In Tourist Season, our anti-hero or protagonist Skip Wiley, became overburdened by too many years in the news industry and found himself to be, let's say, somewhat jaded. Wiley determined that only way to turn the tide of destruction was to proactive and proceed in a less than subtle fashion.

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"Brian, what is Florida anyway? An immense sunny toilet where millions of tourists flush their money and save the moment on Kodak film. The recipe for redemption is simple: scare away the tourists and pretty soon you scare off the developers. No more developers, no more bankers. No more bankers, no more lawyers. No more lawyers, no more dope smugglers. The whole motherfucking economy implodes! Now, tell me I'm crazy."

"Skip, there's got to be another way,"

"No!" Wiley shot to his feet, uprooting the beach umbrella with his head. "There... is... no... other... way! Think about it, you mullusk-brained moron! What gets headlines? Murder, mayhem, and madness - the cardinal M's of the newsroom. That's what terrifies the travel agents of the world. That's what rates congressional hearings and crime commissions. And that's what frightens off bozo Shriner conventions. It's a damn shame, I grant you that. It's a shame I simply couldn't stand up at the next county commission meeting and ask our noble public servants to please stop destroying the planet. It's a shame that the people who poisoned this paradise won't just apologize and pack their U-Hauls and head back North to the smog and the blizzards. But it's a proven fact they won't leave until somebody lights a fire under ‘em. That's what Las Noches de Diciembre is all about. ‘Cops Seek Grisly Suitcase Killer' ... ‘Elderly Woman Abducted, Fed to Vicious Reptile' ... ‘Golf Course Bomb Claims Three on Tricky Twelfth Hole‘ ... ‘Crazed Terrorists Stalk Florida Tourists.'" Wiley was practically chanting the headlines, as if he were watching them roll off the presses at the New York Post.

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[On Las Noches de Diciembre.]

"Mr. Keyes," a vice-mayor said, "what is it they want?"

"They want us to leave," Keyes said.

"All of us," Garcia added, "from Palm Beach to Key West."

"I don't understand," the vice-mayor said.

"They want Florida back," Keyes said, "the way it was."

"The way it was when?"

"When it wasn't fucked up with so many people," Garcia said.

The table erupted in snorts and sniggering, and the men in the blazers seemed to shake their heads gravely in syncopation. "Why doesn't this kind of shit ever happen to Disney World?" one of them said mournfully.

[Given that this is first fiction novel, I will give Carl a pass for not envisioning that the money and politics that runs the US would not install a Ron DeSantis as governor of Florida who would actually go after Disney World.]

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[I loved that our anti-hero used Victor Hugo as an alias; fits in perfectly with the American political situation.]

"Did he give a name at the airport?"

"Yes, he did," Garcia said.

Then all at once, like a flock of crows: "What?"

Garcia glanced over at the police chief. The chief shrugged. The Orange Bowl chairman waved a chubby hand, trying to get somebody's attention.

"The suspect did use a name at the airport," Garcia said, "but we believe it was an alias."

"What was it?"

"In fact, we're ninety-nine percent sure it was an alias," the detective said, fading from the microphone.

"What was it, Al? What?"

"Well," Garcia said, "the name the suspect gave was Hugo. Victor Hugo."

There was a lull in the questioning while the reporters explained to each other who Victor Hugo was.

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I hated the ending. It made sense, and it was probably symbolic of the whole story. Unbeknownst to all a small destruction which will lead to the ultimate destruction of all while the world remains blissfully ignorant. I get it, I just didn't like it. show less

As a thriller and as satire it's as savage as ever. Pity about the squicky romance.

This comic masterpiece has been around for a while, but it is as politically relevant as ever. It is also very, very funny in the darkest possible way. And it tells a great story that keeps the reader flipping those pages. Don't usually give crime fiction five stars, but this more than deserves it.

Carl Hiassen is hilarious. I laughed out loud many times listening to this. His turn of phrase and bluntness are the best.

Of course the ultimate plot fails and one part of me was glad because the deranged journalist who organized the terrorist group deserved to get his in the end, and another part of me understood what he wanted to do about south Florida and sympathized. I almost wished that he could have run everyone off and turned the land over to whom it belonged.

The death by plastic alligator of the chairman of the chamber of commerce was priceless. The coffin coffee table was a nice touch too. I liked the snake bombing of the cruise ship (after my experience on a cruise, it was just the kind of scene I would pay money to see).

Tourist Season is a caper about an amateur terrorist organization that wants to end the tourist industry that is ruining Florida. When the president of the Miami Chamber of Commerce is found dead inside a suitcase with his legs amputated and a rubber alligator stuffed down his throat, police and newspaper reporters prefer to believe it's simply another South Florida crime. Soon, other tourists begin disappearing. The police determine there's no connection and it's not too important. This frustrates the group who is doing the killings. They start sending letters with the name of their terrorist group, Las Noches de Diciembre, linking the Chamber of Commerce death to the disappearances of a visiting Shriner and a Canadian tourist.

Private show more Detective and former newsman Brian Keyes realizes the terrorist group's goal is to convince all tourists to leave the state and never return. It's not long before Brian finds himself caught up in a bizarre string of crimes: a series of murders perpetrated by a radical group using carnivorous reptiles, both living and rubber, as weapons in an attempt to free Florida from the greed, development and reckless destruction of the environment.

I found this to be a very entertaining book, with interesting characters, and a plot that moves briskly along through a number of twists and turns. This was my first Carl Hiasson book and I can see why he has legions of fans enjoying his stories. show less

Frankly I was bored with this novel for the first four chapters. Eventually I started to understand the story line and it became a can't put down type of novel. The main idea of the novel is that tourists and those who go from tourist to homeowners can inspire real estate people to wreck havoc on the environment as they try to make a fast buck. The villians in this novel are basically people who want to protect nature from those who want to destroy it. Their solutions, are what makes this an interesting book. Who are the real villians in this story might make you expend some extra brain power, but it is worth the effort.

Any book that starts out with the discovery of a dead, mutilated midget
stuffed in a bright red American Tourister suitcase will grab my attention
right away. LOL In this book, a small band of disgruntled and oddly
matched terrorists take it upon themselves to try to empty Florida of
tourists and snowbirds and turn it back into the lush wilderness it once
was. A half-crazed but extremely smart newspaper columnist, a washed up
former Miami Dolphin football star, a lunatic Cuban (born and raised in New
Jersey, of all places) and a quietly lethal Seminole Indian, wealthy beyond
belief from Indian bingo parlors, all have motives of their own, but
together they make a decidedly formidible foe. Tracked reluctantly by a
private detective with a personal show more ax to grind against the columnist, they
plow their way through Miami's tourist population, kidnapping and murdering
randomly selected people, just for publicity to scare the beejezus out of
the rest of them and make them all want to GO HOME!

Like his other books, Hiaasen has created a cast of characters with so many
quirks and foibles you can't help but embrace them. Even the "bad guys"
have qualities to admire. Hiaasen writes with wit and finesse and his books
are always very satisfying. This one was written back in the mid 1980s and
is a little dated, but still a great read. (In one place, the detective has
a hell of a time finding a telephone and I guess I'm a creature of the
current times because I kept thinking, "Just use your cell phone!" LOL)

I do heartily recommend any of the Hiaasen books I've read and this one
happily joins that list. show less