Scat

Author: Carl Hiaasen

Genre: Mystery
 Setting: Florida, USA around the time when the book was written (2009)
Summary: Mrs. Starch is the scariest teacher at the Truman School. When her biology class takes a field trip to the Black Vine Swamp, they have to leave early because of a sudden forest fire. It turns out that the forest fire
wasn't a forest fire; it was arson. The prime suspect is Duane Scrod Jr., one of the students, who made Mrs. Starch angry and threatened her. When the students have to go back on the bus, Mrs. Starch goes back into the forest by herself to get a student's medicine. The medicine is left on the student's doorstep, but the only sign of Mrs. Starch is her car, which was being driven by a man with a mask. The other person in the car was none other than Duane Scrod Jr. Several people are trying to find out what happened to Mrs. Starch and how the fire relates to it; the police, the headmaster, and Mrs. Starch's students Nick and Marta.

This is one of those books where you know part of what happened but the people in the book don't. It makes me want to tell the characters who did it. I think the characters in Scat are interesting, like the substitute teacher, Wendell Waxmo, who is completely loopy, and Mrs. Starch herself, who is rumored to live in a house full of taxidermied animals.