Basket Case - Carl Hiaasen

2002; 411 pages. New Author?: No. Genre : Witty Crime. Overall Rating : 4½*/10.

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Jack Tagger has a dead-end job - both literally and figuratively. For mouthing off to the new owner of the small Florida newspaper where he works, he is banished to the no-future job of writing obituaries, in hopes that he'll quit.

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But when over-the-hill rocker Jimmy Stoma dies in a scuba accident in the Bahamas, it piques Jack's interest. Partly because Jack liked him when he was with Jimmy and the Slut Puppies; partly because something doesn't seem right about the accident; partly because if Jack can develop this into a front-page article, he can start to escape the obituary desk limbo.

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What's To Like...

Hiaasen apparently develops a new protagonist for every book; that's a plus. I found Tagger to be more likable than Twilly Spree in Sick Puppy (see its review here). It's nice to read a murder-mystery where the main guy isn't a burnt-out cop. The pacing is nice, it's written in a witty style, and it's an easy read.

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The secondary theme - the moribund state of the newspaper industry - is well-developed. There are only two types of newspaper journalists nowadays - those who are laid-off and depressed, and those who are still working and waiting for the axe to fall.

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If this was a story about journalism, it would be a decent read. Alas, it's a crime-mystery story, and in that regard, it sucks. There really isn't any mystery, and there are zero plot twists. Even when the opportunity for a plot twist arises, the story chooses to plod on in its humdrum, straightforward way. One example :

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Jack's first inkling that something is amiss comes when he learns that the Bahaman police chose not to do an autopsy. When he quizzes them about this, their reply is that they know a drowning accident when they see one. Oooo. This screams for a plot twist. But it never happens. And so it goes throughout the rest of the book.

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Kewl New Words...

Only one. Dyspeptic : displaying a morose disposition.

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Excerpts...

Newspapers customarily do not report a private death as a suicide, on the theory it might plant the idea in the minds of other depressed people, who would immediately rush out and do themselves in. These days no paper can afford to lose subscribers. (pg. 6)

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So far, Jizz is the only joint on Silver Beach with a red velvet rope and a sullen, T-shirted, steroid-addled doorman. The club's motif combines the exotic ambience of a Costa Rican brothel with the cozy, down-home charm of a methamphetamine lab. By the time I reach Carla's booth, I feel like I'm hacking up bronchial tissue. The first topic of discussion is my wardrobe. "Are those really Dockers?" Carla blurts, horror-struck. (pg. 197)

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I'll be there like a gator on a poodle... (pg. 305)

I'm still not smitten with Carl Hiaasen. Maybe I haven't read his best efforts. Sick Puppy and Basket Case are the 9th and 10th books in his (non-YA) stories, so perhaps the ones that made him a best-selling author came earlier. Still, it was mindlessly enjoyable to read (it would make a good Beach Novel), and as seen in the excerpts, Hiaasen is a master of wit. That should count for something against the disappointingly poor plot. 4½ stars.