‘Las Noches de Diciembre’ are a small terrorist cell led by renegade tabloid journalist Skip Wiley. Skip believes that the only way to save Florida’s Everglades from developers is to dissuade tourists from visiting and settling in Florida - and to start his preferred weapon of dissuasion is a giant crocodile called Pavlov. But Skip’s threats are not taken seriously, even after his third random murder, and so he begins to promise a wider and more terrible destruction - focusing on the public appearances of Florida’s Orange Bowl Queen. Carl Hiaasen’s first, fast moving novel is a complex, comic masterpiece.