Trap Line

An early entry into crime fiction by Hiaasen, who would later be lauded for his darkly humorous books of inept Florida crime. Trap Line does not include this humour, rather opting for a serious tone.

Set in the commercial fishing world of southern Florida, a fisherman comes up against organised crime. If it wasn't by Hiaasen I wouldn't have picked it up.

True Carl Hiaasen with more action and suspense and less humor. This was a really good story. No silly happy endings for this guy though. Tough, flawed "hero" that is also typical of Hiaasen. I really enjoyed the book.

This was my second reading of this early story from Hiassen (with Bill Montalbano). With solid pacing and adequate characterization, I consider it to be a collection of Hiaasen's ideas that would eventually lead him into a successful career as a mystery writer. The only thing it lacks is the trademark black humor.

Carl Hiaasen and Bill Montalbano worked together at the Miami Herald. They got together in 1981 to write hard-boiled crime fiction. Their second novel, Trap Line (1982), is set in the shrimp-fishing community of the Florida Keys.

I can’t do better than quote this one-paragraph New York Times review by Newgate Callendar: “There is nothing new in ‘Trap Line.’ But the two authors are expert storytellers who keep things moving along in a straight line, and they know how to build sympathy for their characters. In a way the skipper is Everyman: Though not entirely clean himself, he tries to do his best in a rotten world, and his intrinsic honesty, as well as his ability to take things as they come and then cope with them, is show more admirable. At the end he still has problems, but at least he remains his own man.”

Except in a scene or two, the novel doesn’t have the satirical pop of Hiaasen’s later work, but it is readable all the same. show less

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