![]() ![]() ![]() Paul's thick lenses don't keep him from being a first-rate soccer goalie, but they do make him, willy-nilly, a "handicapped" student and thus, according to his new coach, ineligible to play. 10+)Ī legally blind seventh-grader with clearer vision than most wins acceptance in a new Florida school as his football-hero older brother self-destructs in this absorbing, multi-stranded debut. But Noah’s determination and sense of right comes straight from the author’s heart, and readers will cheer as he and his cohorts scuttle once and for all the activities of the Coral Queen. The whole here is rather less than the sum of its parts, as the plot takes some time to take off and Noah’s first-person narration necessarily limits the loony heights (or depths) Hiaasen can attain in plumbing the psyches of his villains. Hiaasen surrounds Noah with his usual cast of supporting characters: a stoic little sister, a hard-drinking bleached-blonde bartender with a heart of gold, various thuggish lowlifes and a mysterious figure who appears from the jungle to save the day. Readers first meet Noah Underwood in the visiting room of the Florida Keys jail where his father proudly waits for justice to be done to the owner of the Coral Queen, the casino boat that regularly and illegally dumps raw sewage into the bay. What’s a kid to do when his dad’s thrown in jail for an unsuccessful act of ecoterrorism? Why, do it better, of course. ![]()
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