Basket Case

A rollicking and hilarious novel from the bestselling author of Squeeze Me and ''Florida''s most entertainingly indignant social critic'' (New York Times Book Review)

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.

Standing in the way are his ambitious young editor, who hasn''t yet fired anyone but plans to ''break her cherry'' on Jack; the rock star''s pop-singer widow, who''s using the occasion of her husband''s death to relaunch her own career; and the soulless, profit-hungry owner of the newspaper, whom Jack once publicly humiliated at a stockholders'' meeting.

Using clues from the dead rock singer''s music, Jack sets out to discover the truth, in another raucous, brilliant novel from the master of comic crime fiction, Carl Hiaasen.