Carl Hiaasen at the top of his form in a novel of journalists, dead lizards and rock'n'roll...Reluctant hero Jack Tagger is a frustrated journalist. His outspoken views have relegated him to the obituary page and the paper's florid owner, Race Maggad III, has decreed that his byline will never again grace the front page. But Jack has stumbled across a peach of a story. James Stomarti, rock musician extraordinaire (formerly of Jimmy and the Slut Puppies and best remembered for his seminal album, A Painful Burning Sensation) has died in a diving accident and while researching the obituary, Jack realises that the glamorous pop starlet widow may have had a vested interest in her husband's untimely death. Aided and abetted by Jimmy's webcam obsessed sister and his own rather sexy young editor, Emma, Jack wages a war to discover the truth. However, Jack's unhealthy obsession with death, spawned by years of writing obits (well, would you want to die at the same age as Elvis?) keeps getting in the way and, when he's dragged into the rampant internal politics of the paper, it seems he's never going to find sanity. Was Jimmy Stomarti murdered?
Is someone trying to kill off the Slut Puppies one by one? And what significance can a dead lizard named Colonel Tom possibly have?