Clinton Tyree

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Clinton Tyree is a fictional character who has appeared in several novels by Carl Hiaasen, beginning with Double Whammy in 1987.

Tyree is a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War and former professor at the University of Florida who became Governor of Florida in the 1970s. While in office, he regularly refused to take bribes from real estate developers, and tried his best to protect the environment. He eventually quit the role after corporate money turned almost everyone in Florida politics against him. Leaving his resignation, he disappeared from the Governor's mansion, and was last seen when his driver left him at a bus depot in Orlando.

Secretly, he made his way to Harney County (a fictional Florida county), where he lived in a tumbledown shack, surviving mostly by dining on roadkill. He became known to the locals as Skink or Captain, and was simply viewed as an eccentric, albeit a potentially violent one.

Hiaasen often writes another character, Jim Tile, into plotlines involving the former governor. The reserved yet righteous Tile was a member of Tyree's gubernatorial security staff who became a State Trooper when Tyree left office. Tile makes it a personal priority to stay around his old boss and vouch for his character on the rare occasions when Tyree needs a helping hand.

In Double Whammy, his retirement (such as it was) was interrupted when private investigator R.J.Decker recruited him to help look into allegations of cheating in professional bass fishing tournaments.

Since then, Tyree has appeared in other Hiaasen novels, notably Stormy Weather, Sick Puppy and Skinny Dip.