Put on your Wanchese Wingtips, wraparound shades, and the floatation device of your choice-the Saltwater Cowboys are taking you for a ride.

Dodge Lawson has been around Croaker Neck long enough to see his share of strangeness . But lately strange doesn't begin to describe what's been happening in this soundside fishing village. Sea turtles are turning up in the most unusual places-a hotel Jacuzzi, a country club fountain, and even in the back of a pickup truck. Dodge, who is paid to return the turtles to the sea, worries over who's behind the eco-pranks, hoping it's not his friends-Croaker Neck's backwater buckaroos struggling to retain their traditions and self-sufficient way of life.

His best friend is Johnny Bollard, a shrimper whose ready smile and gifts with the hoi toide language land him a guest appearance before the state legislature. Then there's Digger Davis, a charterboat skipper who lost his captain's license over an herbal indiscretion. And Pogy, the town mystic, whose necklace of Indian arrowheads lets him whistle past the Graveyard of the Atlantic.

Dodge is the man in the middle, a dingbatter in love with a beautiful redhead on her own worrisome mission: saving the sea turtles. When a Yankee filmmaker down to his last reel shows up in town to make his masterpiece, the pranks get out of control and the story turns hobbly-gobbly.

Saltwater Cowboys is an irresistibly funny novel about a group of n'er-do-wells who succeed in spite of their own shortcomings. Come along for the ride.