Published in 1982, this early Hiaasen work would seem to indicate that everyone in Florida was corrupt back in the day. It’s not the only book I saw this in from that era. Drugs seemed to put just about everyone on the take and most honest people seemed just to ignore it until it affected them.

Breeze Albury is a local fisherman. He got in trouble once with the local drug runners and served 11 months in prison. He’s been trying to keep everything clean and raise his son Ricky, who has a promising pitching arm. However, the local drug runners are not through with Breeze. They want him to do a job for them, but Breeze doesn’t want any part of it. Then, someone cuts 300 of Breeze’s traps loose and he’s pretty much forced into it.

In Trap Line, Hiaasen and Montalbano pit a handful of scruffy Conchs against an armada of drug lords, crooked cops, and homicidal marine lowlife. The result is a crime novel of dizzying velocity, filled with wrenching plot twists, grimily authentic characters, and enough local color for a hundred tropical shirts. It’s the Key West the tourist brochures won’t tell you about: a place as crooked as Al Capone’s Chicago and as irredeemably violent as Wyatt Earp’s Tombstone.

That’s the gist of the story. While it’s not overly complicated and a bit predictable, it’s also a good read. The sarcasm and humor Hiaasen would be known for in later books isn’t here. However, the thriller of the little guy against a corrupt machine works very well. Breeze isn’t perfect, but he does love his son and is trying to do right by him. He has allies among the other residents of Key West and they decide to use this moment to take a stand. It’s the underdogs versus Goliath, and it works very well. However, the depiction of his partner leaving because the corruption in Key West is overwhelming is likely accurate, especially in the days when people basically ignored assaults on gay people. The gay community in Key West hadn’t yet blossomed into what it is now, but the book gives a sense that it’s about to happen. It makes one appreciate how far we’ve really come.

The cast of characters here is extensive, and it’s pretty easy to see who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. There are no real shades of gray in Trap Line. Breeze is a good guy who made one mistake and keeps paying for it. Let’s be real, in 2023 smuggling pot isn’t as big of a deal anymore. That’s the biggest problem – a lot of what happens is diminished by the passage of time. Even Breeze being forced into human trafficking isn’t quite the problem as we sympathize more with the people trying to escape Colombia, which had been overrun by drug lords at this time.

I did enjoy Trap Line. It’s not what people usually expect from Hiaasen, being one of his earlier works. This is basic crime fiction that takes place in Key West. There are some familiar places for anyone who has been there, but much of the culture that we know today had not yet really developed.