Carl Hiaasen (pronounced "hiya-sun") was born and raised in south Florida, where he still lives with his family. He attended Emory University and graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Florida in 1974.


Since 1976, Hiaasen has worked for the Miami Herald, beginning as a general assignment reporter and later joining the newspapers prize-winning investigations team. There he worked on projects exposing dangerous doctors, crooked land deals, and drug corruption in the Bahamas and the Keys. For the last twenty years, Hiaasen has written a regular column that has won numerous awards and earned him the enmity of many sleazy politicians, whove found themselves the target of his pen. Today his column appears on most Sundays in the Heralds opinion-and-editorial section.  Together Hiaasens novels have been published in 33 languages32 more than he is able to read or write. The London Observer has called him "America's finest satirical novelist," while Janet Maslin of the New York Times has compared him to Preston Sturges, Woody Allen, and S. J. Perelman.


For his journalism and commentary, Hiaasen received the Damon Runyon Award from the Denver Press Club in 20032004. Hiaasen began writing novels in the early 1980s with his good friend and distinguished journalist, the late William D. Montalbano. Together they wrote three mystery thrillersPowder Burn, Trap Line, and Death in Chinawhich borrowed heavily from their own reporting experiences.