Razor Girl

Over the past few years, I've started a winter tradition - when we have the first real cold snap of winter, I read a Carl Hiassen novel. They're always fun, popcorn-for-dinner style crime novels, and most importantly, they're all set in warm, sunny Florida. I dive into the book and let the descriptions of beaches and everglades keep me warm while the slush piles up around my winter boots.

This one's set in the middle of Florida winter, which counteracts that a bit. But it's not something I can really hold against it.

Razor Girl was a fascinating experience in situational ethics because EVERYONE in the book is running a scam. Some of those scams are legal, and some aren't; some of them could even be argued to be ethical, from a certain point of view. But scam, scam, everywhere's a scam; Hiassen's Florida is a place that's nice to visit from a distance, but you definitely wouldn't want to live there.