Stormy Weather

Young newlyweds Max and Bonnie Brooks, on their honeymoon at Walt Disney World in Orlando, are taken aback by news of the hurricane passing through South Florida. To Bonnie's surprise, Max is possessed by a fervent desire to visit the scene after it has passed through.Once they arrive, Bonnie is appalled to see Max hopping through hurricane debris and gutted houses with his video camera, treating the devastation as a tourist attraction. She stalks away from him to regain her temper, and so is not present when Max is snatched up by "Skink," an ex-governor of Florida now living wild in the Florida country, who attempts to teach him some manners and respect for nature (partly through the use of a shock collar).At the same time, con artist Edie Marsh, and her sometime partner, an ex-convict nicknamed "Snapper," travel to the hurricane zone to work a personal injury scam. Unfortunately for them, the house they pick belongs to mobile home salesman Tony Torres, who's a bit sharper than the average hurricane victim, and quickly sees through them and takes them hostage with a shotgun. But instead of killing them, he invites them in on his own scam: he's expecting a large settlement from the insurance company, but needs his estranged wife's signature to collect; if Edie poses as the wife, Tony can cut out his real wife, and Edie gets a slice of the take.After searching fruitlessly for Max, Bonnie is befriended by Augustine Herrera, an independent young man who is roaming the county in a half-futile search for a menagerie of exotic animals loosed from his deceased uncle's wildlife farm by the hurricane (these animals appear throughout the novel in various bizarre ways).Edie and Snapper's promising new scam falls apart when Tony Torres is abducted from under their noses and murdered by Ira Jackson, a mob enforcer whose mother lived in one of Torres's sub-standard trailer homes and was killed during the hurricane. After unceremoniously parting ways, each of them discovers a new angle to work: Edie seduces the insurance adjuster, Fred Dove, sent to the Torres home, and convinces him to help her pose as Neria for the insurance payoff. Snapper, meanwhile, partners with Avila, an egregiously corrupt building inspector, to run a phony roofing company and con as much money as possible out of desperate homeowners.While working the scam, Snapper does two things with long-term consequences: he manages to score a $7,000 cash "deposit" from the dim-witted wife of construction mogul Gar Whitmark; later, when pulled over for a routine traffic stop, he ambushes and savagely beats Highway Patrol Trooper Brenda Rourke, who happens to be the girlfriend of Skink's best friend, Trooper Jim Tile. Growing bored with the roofing scam, Snapper returns to the Torres house, and blackmails Edie and Fred into letting him in on their insurance scam.Ira Jackson's next target is Avila, the inspector who who approved his mother's trailer court, sight unseen. However, Avila is rescued by an escaped African lion, that pounces on Jackson and eats him. Avila's problems do not end there, however, when a wrathful Gar Whitmark tracks the phony roofing scam back to him, and threatens to expose Avila unless Avila pays him back the money Snapper stole, plus the cost of replacing Whitmark's roof.Skink eventually arranges to hand Max over to Bonnie, and announces that his next order of business is to track down the man who hurt Brenda.Bonnie has become attracted to Augustine, and at the same time aware of Max's less attractive qualities. When Augustine volunteers to help Skink in his new mission, Bonnie impulsively decides to stay in Florida and go along. Max, preoccupied with a new crisis at his job, flies back to New York without her.The three track the car Snapper was driving back to the Torres house, where they see something bizarre. -- from Wikipedia