Skink no surrender

Review by New York Times Review

While variety can be described as the spice of (wacky and irrepressible) life in any of Hiaasen's many books, there are certain consistent ingredients: Good versus evil wage a kind of postmodern battle with each other in the form of a quest or the solving of a mystery, usually played out against a Florida backdrop. In a Hiaasen book, there are lessons to be learned, but they don't feel like lessons going down. "Skink," Hiaasen's first offering for teenagers, fits neatly into the author's oeuvre, featuring a character familiar to adult fans: Skink is a grizzled, one-eyed former governor whose form of vigilante justice, which he employs readily with regard to matters of the environment, adheres firmly to the spirit of the law, if not the letter. But the main character in "Skink" is the poised and appealing 14-year-old Richard, whose rebellious cousin Malley has run off with a guy she's met online to escape being sent to boarding school. Richard suspects the worst, and after a chance meeting with the old governor over a fake turtle's nest, the two are off to rescue Malley, who herself is not quite a damsel in distress. It's a quintessentially Hiaasen romp for a younger set, combining a message of taking care of the world with suspense, humor, a generous helping of Florida wildlife and much heart.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [September 28, 2014]

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Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* In his first novel aimed at teens, Hiaasen leaves behind middle-school bullying and veers this ecological mystery into the territory of online predators, with inimitable Hiaasen style. Richard's cousin Malley is missing, and he fears that she's in danger, despite her eventual calm phone calls and e-mails. When she drops a clue about having spotted the possibly extinct ivory-billed woodpecker, Richard knows she needs help and is giving him a clue. His sidekick on this sleuthing adventure is Skink, from Hiaasen's adult fiction a Vietnam vet, an ex-governor, and an ecological-crusading, road-kill-eating hermit. Eccentric doesn't begin to describe him or the variety of objects he inserts in his empty eye socket. Skink and Richard make quite a dangerous and entertaining duo in a story that careens perfectly from one crazy situation to the next. The predator details are not described in intimate detail, leaving readers to imagine the realities for themselves, but the dangers of online relationships are clearly illuminated. Reluctant readers (especially guys) will surrender themselves to this page-turner. Cross your fingers that we haven't seen the last of Skink! HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: With Skink showing up in teen territory, this YA debut from the number-one New York Times best-selling author has crossover potential. Stock up!--Dobrez, Cindy Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Rather than be shipped off to boarding school, Richard Sloan's cousin Malley runs away with a questionable acquaintance she met online. Richard shares his worry over her fate with a strange, one-eyed man he stumbles across on a Florida beach. Hiaasen's adult readers will immediately recognize Skink, the former governor turned eco-warrior, who first appeared 25 years ago in Double Whammy. Skink commandeers Richard's mission to find Malley and tutors his young new friend on carnivorous gators, wild pigs, driving (Richard is still a year away from a learner's permit but no matter), and how to prepare roadkill for human consumption. What happens to Malley during her abduction is never explicitly stated, but the implication of what a criminal is doing with a handcuffed 14-year-old girl rides uneasily alongside the kookier elements of the story. Still, there is much to enjoy. Hiaasen's concern for the environment and its most vulnerable denizens is again on full display, and Richard has a memorable epiphany when he loses his phone in Choctawhatchee Bay: "Pursuing a desperate criminal through the wilderness drastically rearranges your priorities." Ages 12-up. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 9 Up-Richard and his cousin Malley are best friends. But while Richard is pretty levelheaded, Malley tends to get into trouble. So Richard is only mildly surprised to discover that she's run off with a guy she met on the Internet in order to avoid being sent to boarding school in New Hampshire. Richard wants to go find her, and luckily he runs into what may be the perfect person to help him do just that: a ragged, one-eyed ex-governor of Florida named Skink. With Skink at the helm, the two set off across Florida in search of Richard's cousin. While Malley's character is not as fully developed as the others and the story seems highly improbable, Skink, a favorite character from Hiaasen's adult novels, is incredibly memorable. Whether it's diving in to a gator-infested river after a rogue canoe, getting his foot run over by a semi while trying to save a baby turtle, or hiding out in the sand to save the next turtle, Skink is always full of surprises. And like a cat with nine lives, one never knows how he'll make it out or what will happen next. One thing's for sure: readers will want to be along for the ride. Although the ending meanders, fans of Hiaasen's novels won't mind the detours one bit.-Necia Blundy, formerly at Marlborough Public Library, MA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Horn Book Review

Clint Tyree, a.k.a. Skink, has starred in half a dozen of Hiaasen's adult novels; here he makes his first appearance in YA. Standing well over six feet tall, "built like a grizzly" and strong as an ox, unkempt, unwashed, and unwavering in executing his self-imposed crusade and frontier-style justice against the powerful preying on the powerless (both humans and the environment), the former Florida governor is a presence to be reckoned with. As the book opens, teen narrator Richard's cousin and best friend, Malley, runs away from home because she doesn't want to go to boarding school, and Richard is certain that she's with a chat-room acquaintance almost twice her age. When he tells Skink, the governor immediately takes off to rescue Malley, and Richard joins him on an event-filled road trip from Loggerhead Beach through the Panhandle. Although Skink is larger than life, Hiaasen smoothly integrates his vulnerabilities with his outrageous behaviors, including eating roadkill and wrestling an alligator. Richard's naivete plays nicely against Skink's extremism, and Malley remains a prima donna despite her predicament; the villain is unfortunately a two-dimensional character in contrast. There's a message about personal safety on the internet and a little moral instruction from Skink, but these go down as easily as the sun dipping into the Florida Gulf at nightfall. betty carter (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

If you were pursuing your cousins kidnapper across Florida, you would want a man like Skink at your side. Maybe.Skink, as readers of Hiaasens novels for adults know, was once governor of Florida and is now a genially lawless reprobate who takes eco-terrorism to a whole new level. Richard first meets him completely buried in the sand on a beach lying in wait for a sea turtleegg thief. That one extraordinary encounter turns into an unlikely partnership when Richards spirited cousin, Malley, runs off with a guy she met on the Internet in order to avoid boarding school, a joy ride that quickly goes sour. On the road with Skink, Richard develops a taste for roadkill (Skink wont eat any other kind of meat), learns how to drive (Skink injures his foot saving a baby skunk from a semi) and reads Silent Spring (Skink is horrified Richard hasnt encountered it in school). They follow Malleys cryptic cellphone clues into a swamp that just may be ivory-billedwoodpecker habitat for a classic Hiaasen showdown. While this confrontation goes on a bit too long, that doesnt diminish the pleasure of the developing relationship between Skink and the fatherless Richard, as trusty a protagonist as ever was.Hiaasens fierce love for the wilds of Florida, his fundamental commitment to decency and his penchant for the bizarre are all on full display in this, a read as agreeable as his hero is. (Fiction. 10-15) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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ONE I walked down to the beach and waited for Malley, but she didn't show up.    The moon was full and the ocean breeze felt warm. Two hours I sat there on the sand--no Malley. In the beginning it was just annoying, but after a while I began to worry that something was wrong.    My cousin, in spite of her issues, is a punctual person.   I kept calling her cell phone but it went straight to her voice mail, which was Malley chortling in a British accent: "I'm in the loo. Ring you back later!" I didn't leave a message, and I didn't text, either.    In case somebody else had her phone.   Somebody like her dad, who's my uncle. He takes away Malley's cell like twice a week as punishment for acting up, acting out, whatever. Still, even when she's in trouble at home, she always finds a way to sneak out to the beach.   A few turtle people were scouting the shoreline, waggling their flashlights. I walked north, as Malley and I usu- ally did. We'd never seen a turtle actually laying her eggs, but we'd found several nests. The first thing you notice is the flipper tracks leading up from the water's edge. Loggerheads, hawksbills and green turtles leave trenches like a mini-dune buggy when they drag their heavy shells across the sand.   After the mother turtle finishes depositing her eggs, she covers them with a loose, churned mound. Every time that Malley and I came across one, we'd call the state wildlife office and they would send an officer to mark it.   First, wooden stakes are tapped into the sand to create a rectangular perimeter outside the mound; then hot-pink ribbons are strung from one stake to the next. You can go to jail for messing with a turtle nest, so the officers put up a warning sign. Still, every so often some random idiot gets caught stealing the eggs, which are sold as a romantic ingredient in certain places.   Pathetic but true. The phone chirped, but it wasn't a text from Malley; it was my mom asking where the heck I was. I texted her that I was still down by the water, and that no savage criminals had tried to snatch me. Afterwards I tried Malley's number once more, but she didn't pick up.    So I walked on alone until I came to a marked nest that I didn't remember seeing the last time Malley and I were there. The dig was new and soft. I picked a spot outside the warning ribbon and sat down holding my baseball bat, which Mom makes me carry for protection whenever I go to the beach after dark. It's an Easton aluminum model left over from when I played Little League. I feel dorky carrying it, but Mom won't let me out of the house if I don't. Too many creeps in the world, she says.    The slanted moonlight made the waves look like curls of pink gold. I lay back, folded my arms behind my head and closed my eyes. The wind was easing, and I heard a train blow its horn to the west, on the mainland.    That wasn't all. I heard the sound of breathing, too, and it wasn't my own.    At first I thought: Turtle . The breaths were damp and shallow, like air being forced through a broken whistle.    I sat up and looked around: No sign of tracks. Maybe it was an old bobcat, watching me from the dunes. Or a raccoon--they like to dig up loggerhead nests and chow down the eggs. I slapped the Easton in the palm of my left hand, which stung. The noise was sharp enough to scare off most critters, but it didn't frighten whatever was breathing nearby.    Leaving seemed like a smart idea, but I got only fifty yards before I turned and went back. Whatever I'd heard couldn't be very large because otherwise I would have spotted it; there was really no place to hide on an empty beach under a full moon.    Approaching the turtle nest again, I put down the Easton and cupped my ears to muffle the sound of the waves. The mysterious breathing seemed to be coming from inside the rectangle of pink ribbons.    Could it be a crab? I wondered. A crab with asthma?    Because new turtle eggs don't make a peep. That I knew for a fact.    Carefully I stepped over the border of ribbons and crouched on top of the nest. In and out went the raspy noise, slow and even. I leaned closer and saw a striped soda straw sticking out of the sand. Through the exposed end I could feel a puff of warm air whenever the underground creature exhaled.    No more than three inches of the straw was exposed, but that was enough to pinch between my fingers. When I pulled it out of the mound, the in-and-out noise stopped.    I stood dead still on my heels, waiting for a reaction. Honestly I wasn't trying to suffocate the critter; I just wanted to make it crawl out so I could see what the heck it was. My thought was to take a picture with my phone and text it to Malley.    The world's sneakiest crab, right?    But then, as I was peering at the spot where the soda straw had been, the turtle nest basically exploded. A full-grown man shot upright in a spray of sand, and my heart must have stopped beating for ten seconds.    Built like a grizzly, he was coughing and swearing and spitting through a long, caked beard. On his chiseled block of a head he wore (I swear) a flowered plastic shower cap. Even weirder, his left eye and right eye were pointed in totally different directions.    I vaulted back over the ribbon and snatched up my baseball bat.    He said, "Get serious, boy."    After catching my breath, I asked, "What are you doing here?"    "Gagging, thanks to you."    I tried to apologize but I couldn't put the words together. I was too freaked.    "Let's have your name," the man said.    "R-R-Richard." "They call you Rick?"    "No."    "Ricky? Richie?"    "Just Richard."    "Outstanding," he said. "I like your parents already."    "Dude, you can't sleep in a turtle nest!"    "What'd you do with my straw?" He brushed himself off. I'm guessing he stood six four, six five. Large, like I said. He wore a moldy old army jacket and camo pants, and he was clutching a dirty duffel bag.    "They'll put you in jail," I said. "Yeah?" He wheeled in a full circle, kicking violently at the sand with his boots. I covered my eyes.    "See, Richard," he said when he was done, "it's not a real turtle nest."     One by one he yanked up the stakes and tied them together with the pink ribbons. He crammed the whole bundle into his duffel and said, "I was waiting on a man."    "While you're buried on a beach?"    "It's meant to be a surprise. His name is Dodge Olney. Digs up turtle eggs and sells them on the black market for two bucks a pop. One night he's gonna dig up me."    "Then what?" I asked.    "He and I will have a chat."    "Why don't you just call the law?"    "Olney's been arrested three times for robbing loggerhead nests," the man explained. "The jailhouse experience has failed to rehabilitate him. I'll be taking a different approach."    There was no anger in his voice, but the slow way he said the words made me seriously glad not to be Mr. Olney.    "Tell me this, Richard. What are you doing out here?"    I don't have much experience with homeless persons, so I was sort of sketched out. But he was an old dude, probably the same age as my grandpa, and I decided there was no way he could catch me if I ran.    Looking up and down the shore, I saw that I was on my own. The nearest flashlight beams were a couple hundred yards away--more turtle people. There was a row of private houses on the other side of the dunes, so I figured I could take off in that direction, if necessary. Pound on somebody's door and yell for help.    "I've gotta get going," I said to the stranger.    "Excellent idea."    "If you see a girl out here about my age? That's my cousin." I wanted him to know, in case he got any crazy ideas. He was aware that in the moonlight I had a good look at his face, those weird eyeballs that didn't match.    "You want me to have her call you?" he asked.    "Don't talk to her, please. She'll get scared."    "Understandably."    "Maybe you should find somewhere else to crash," I said.    He grinned--and I mean these were the whitest, brightest, straightest teeth I ever saw. Not what you expect on a grungy old guy who'd just popped out of a hole.    "Son, I've walked the whole way from Lauderdale on this hunt, sleeping every night on the beach. That's a hundred and thirty-odd miles, and you're the first person to make it an issue."    "It's not an issue," I said. "Just, you know, a suggestion."   "Well, I got one for you: Go home."    "What's your name?" I asked.    "So you can give it to the cops? No thanks."    I promised not to call the police, which was true for the moment. The man wasn't breaking any laws, sleeping underground with a straw for a breathing tube. Really he wasn't bothering a soul, and then I came along and riled him up.    "The name's Clint Tyree," he told me, "although I haven't answered to it in years. Good night, now."    He walked away, along the water's edge. I sat down beside the remains of his fake turtle nest, took out my cell and Googled the name he'd given me, just to make sure he wasn't listed on some child-predator site. He wasn't.    He was, however, famous for something else.    When I caught up to him, half a mile down the beach, I told him that Wikipedia said he was dead. Excerpted from Skink - No Surrender by Carl Hiaasen All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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