Carl Hiaasen takes us deep in the Everglades with an eccentric eco-avenger, a ticked-off panther, and two kids on a mission to find their missing teacher. Florida - where the animals are wild and the people are wilder! Bunny Starch, the most feared biology teacher ever, is missing. She disappeared after a school field trip to Black Vine Swamp. And, to be honest, the kids in her class are relieved. But when the principal tries to tell the students that Mrs. Starch has been called away on a "family emergency", Nick and Marta just don't buy it.

Some facts about Billy Dickens: He once saw a biker swerve across the road in order to run over a snake. Later, that motorcycle somehow ended up at the bottom of a canal. Billy isn't the type to let things go. Some facts about Billy's family: They've lived in six different Florida towns because Billy's mom insists on getting a house near a bald eagle nest. Billy's dad left when he was four and is a total mystery. Billy has just found his dad's address - in Montana.

Once a hotshot investigative reporter, Jack Tagger now bangs out obituaries for a South Florida daily, "plotting to resurrect my newspaper career by yoking my byline to some famous stiff". Jimmy Stoma, the infamous front man of Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, dead in a fishy-smelling scuba "accident", might be the stiff of Jack’s dreams - if only he can figure out what happened.

You know it's going to be a rough summer when you spend Father's Day visiting your dad in the local lockup. Noah's dad is sure that the owner of the Coral Queen casino boat is flushing raw sewage into the harbor, which has made taking a dip at the local beach like swimming in a toilet. He can't prove it though, and so he decides that sinking the boat will make an effective statement. Right. The boat is pumped out and back in business within days and Noah's dad is stuck in the clink.

Andrew Yancy—late of the Miami Police and soon-to-be-late of the Monroe County sheriff’s office—has a human arm in his freezer. There’s a logical (Hiaasenian) explanation for that, but not for how and why it parted from its shadowy owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, the sheriff might rescue him from his grisly Health Inspector gig (it’s not called the roach patrol for nothing).