Book Review: Scat

Title: Scat
Author: Carl Hiaasen
Genre: Adventure, Mystery
My Rating: ****
Official Rating: Teen Fiction
Age Group: 14+ (could possibly be 12+)

Summary: Nick has a very big problem: his biology teacher (the one nobody likes) has gone missing. Now, few of his classmates actually care (aside from his close friend Marta and a girl named Libby), but Nick, being a nice boy, really does care. Since she went missing the day of a wildfire, which happened in a swamp where Nick had hoped to see a panther, he decides to start there.
That's when things kind of explode. Nick gets involved with a strange man named Twilly, learns the truth about his biology teacher, finds out a very unexpected truth about the bad-boy Smoke (Duane Jr.), and gets his wish. He gets to see a panther.
Two, actually. One is a cub.
In the process, an evil business man tries to work behind the law and Nick's dad encounters difficulties in Iraq.
The biggest question is, how in the world is the author going to tie all of this together, and off, by the end of the book?


Word of Warning:

• A business man ignores laws and drills for oil where it is illegal to do so.
• A kid is arrested and admits to lighting at least two fires.
• A man loses his arm (but not "on page").
• Nick breaks his arm, is attacked by a panther, and falls out of a tree and blacks out.
• Guns are fired (not at people).
• The story eventually ends up circling around an endangered species and people's treatment of this delicate issue.
• Kids continually do things their parents would not want them to do.
• People are very rude and disrespectful toward each other.
• The words d**n and a** are used more than once.

My Thoughts:
Within the genre, the problems above really aren't a huge problem. The voice of the narration was fantastic and I am beginning to see that this is simply Hiaasen and his amazing-ness. Even the plot of saving the panthers was, for the most part, realistic and not over done (as much of the save-the-animals stuff can be). It's impressive how Hiaasen manages to whip up so many different story-lines and actually work them together. The characters are fantastic and while the dialogue can be choppy, it's far too funny to really get frustrated with.
I would reread this over, and over, and over again. It's just too good not to.