Naked came the Manatee / Carl Hiaasen, Elmore Leonard, Dave Barry and others

Naked Came the Manatee is a mystery thriller parody novel published in 1996. It is composed of thirteen chapters, each written by a different Miami-area writer. It was originally published as a serial in the Miami Herald’s Tropic magazine, one chapter per issue, and later published as a single novel. Its title is a reference to the literary hoax Naked Came the Stranger. The book was conceived of and edited by Tom Shroder, then editor of Tropic. Dave Barry came up with the first chapter, which was then handed to the next writer, and so on until Carl Hiaasen had to tie all the loose threads together in the final chapter. Each chapter was written on deadline for publication in the magazine.

The plot involves three crime-solving characters from three of the writers’ previous, non-parody, mystery/thriller works – Les Standiford’s John Deal, Paul Levine’s Jake Lassiter, and Edna Buchanan’s Britt Montero – coming together to help an elderly environmentalist and her granddaughter investigate the mystery behind a package delivered by a precocious Miami-area manatee named Booger.