He began his career as a newspaper reporter and by the late 1970s had begun writing novels in his spare time, both for adults and for middle grade readers.

[2] Raised in Plantation, Florida, then a rural suburb of Fort Lauderdale, he started writing at age six when his father gave him a typewriter for Christmas.

Hiaasen was a reporter at TODAY (Cocoa, Florida) for two years before being hired in 1976 by the Miami Herald, where he worked for the city desk, Sunday magazine and award-winning investigative team.

His columns have been collected in three published volumes, Kick Ass (1999), Paradise Screwed (2001) and Dance of the Reptiles (2014), all edited by Diane Stevenson.

The book's main character was whimsically memorialized by Jimmy Buffett in a song called "The Ballad of Skip Wiley", which appeared on his Barometer Soup album.

An earlier Hiaasen novel, Strip Tease, was adapted into the 1996 feature film Striptease starring Demi Moore and Burt Reynolds.

Hiaasen's subsequent children's novels are Flush; Scat; Chomp; Skink - No Surrender, which introduces one of his most popular adult characters to younger readers; Squirm; and the latest, Wrecker.

[8] Booklist wrote, "Wielding his writing talents and wit, Hiaasen seamlessly incorporates...disparate elements into one heck of a ride".

The novel takes place during the glitzy Palm Beach social season, and features wild pythons and a fictional, well-fed U.S. president who has a vacation mansion on the island.

Hiaasen's most recent nonfiction work is Assume the Worst: The Graduation Speech You'll Never Hear, which was published in April 2018 and illustrated by Roz Chast, known for her cartoons in The New Yorker.