Stormy Weather - Carl Hiaasen

   1995; 384 pages.  Book 3 (out of 7) in the “Skink” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Crime–Humor; Florida Crime-Noir; Beach Novel; Satire.  Overall Rating: 8½*/10.

 

    It’s probably not a good idea to book a week’s vacation in Florida during hurricane season.  But that’s what honeymooners Max and Bonnie Lamb did.

 

    And sure enough, a killer hurricane—the weatherman called it the nastiest one in years—just ripped through the Miami area, wreaking havoc on everything in its path.  That’s okay though, since Bonnie and Max are staying at Disney World, a couple hundred miles north of all the destruction.

 

    Now Max has a romantic idea: let’s drive down to Miami and videotape the aftermath of the storm’s fury.  We’ll concentrate on house trailers.  If we’re lucky we might even film some dead bodies.  Maybe we can sell the footage to CNN.

 

    Besides, the storm is no longer in the area.  What possible harm can come of this?

 

What’s To Like...

    Stormy Weather is the third book in Carl Hiaasen’s Florida noir “Skink” series.  Skink is hands down my favorite Carl Hiaasen character; he’s a former governor of Florida who suddenly quit one day and disappeared into the swamps and marshes.  But he's still alive and well, a fact he trusts with only a very few companions.

 

    Several people in Stormy Weather get killed in addition to the hurricane victims, but this is not a whodunit.   The reader witnesses who the perpetrators are, and the fun is guessing which ones will pay for their misdeeds, and which ones will get away.  You might be surprised by some of those outcomes.

 

    A bunch of storylines are quickly introduced, staffed by a bunch of quirky characters.  Carl Hiaasen then jumbles up both plots and people, and mirthful mayhem ensues.  In the hands of a lesser author this might get tedious and confusing, by Hiaasen handles it deftly.  A couple of budding romances also pop up, but this doesn’t overshadow the book’s main genre: humorous Florida crime-fiction.

 

    The ending has a couple of neat twists, and does a good job of tying up all the story threads.  True love wins out, Skink disappears back into the hinterlands, and after the requisite insurance claims have been filed, repairs commence on homes and house trailers.  Owners can rest assured that their domiciles are now “hurricane-proof”.

    Yeah, sure.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Plangently (adv.) : in a loud, reverberating, and melancholy way.

Others: Spavined (adj.).

 

Excerpts...

    “She tried to cut out my kidneys one night in the shower.”

    “That’s the scar on your back?  The Y.”

    “At least she wasn’t a urologist.”  He closed the book and picked up the channel changer for the television.

    Bonnie said, “You cheated on her.”

    “Nope, but she thought I did.  She also thought the bathtub was full of centipedes, Cuban spies were spiking her lemonade, and Richard Nixon was working the night shift at the Farm Store on Bird Road.”

    “Drug problem?”

    “Evidently.”  (pg. 91)

 

    He lifted her chin.  “This is not a well person.  This is a man who put a shock collar on your husband, a man who gets high off frog slime.  He’s done things you don’t want to know about, probably even killed people/”

    “At least he believes in something.”

    “Good Lord, Bonnie.”

    “Then why are you here?  If he’s so dangerous, if he’s so crazy—”

    “Who said he was crazy.”  (pg. 224)

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 3,109 ratings and 418 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.97*/5, based on 18,108 ratings and 1,078 reviews.

 

“The world doesn’t stop for a hurricane.”  “No, (…) but it wobbles.”  (pg. 68)

    The text of Stormy Weather is rife with profanity.  I counted 43 instances in the first 10% of the book, which extrapolates out to a gazillion or so.  There are also a number of references to “adult situations” and some racial pejoratives.

 

    But that’s just par for the course for a Carl Hiaasen novel.  This is my ninth novel by him, and I really like his storytelling and writing style.  The plotlines are complex, yet not confusing.  The action is fast-paced.  The satire is witty.  Best of all are the author’s perspectives on the business activities in his native state, warts and all.  And let’s face it, Florida being battered by hurricanes is an annual occurrence.  You can view that as a chronic drawback, but enterprising souls will see it as opportunities get rich quick via what some people might call scams and rip-offs.

 

    8½ Stars.  Here’s a Spanglish phrase that cropped up in the story: “Sale del carro con los manos arriba!”  Look up its translation.  It may come in handy someday.

Double Whammy - Carl Hiaasen

   1987; 320 pages.  Book 1 (out of 7) in the “Skink” series.  Book 2 (out of 16) in Hiaasen’s (overall) Florida noir series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Crime–Humor; Florida Crime-Noir; Beach Novel; Satire.  Overall Rating: 8*/10.

 

    Do you live in Florida and want to make some quick money?  Here are three easy ways.

 

    Hold a bass fishing tournament.  There are lots of avid fishermen throughout the Southeast that love to enter these, and you only have to pay off one winner.

 

    Build some condos around some lakes.  And by “lakes” we mean any body of water, manmade or natural, no matter how polluted, but one that’s large enough for fishing boats.  If you call it a lake, they will come.

 

    Hold a fundamentalist healing revival.  You’ll need a human who can fake being crippled for this, preferably someone young and cute.  After you perform the “miracle” the believers will shower you with dollars.

 

    Reverend Charles Weeb is both needy and greedy.  He plans to combine all three of those rackets and a lollapalooza of a fundraiser!

 

What’s To Like...

    Double Whammy is an early entry in what I call Carl Hiaasen’s “Florida Crime-Noir” series.  This is the eighth book I’ve read from that collection.   I have not been reading them in chronological order and I don’t think I’ve been missing much.  Amazon prefers to label it the first entry in the “Skink” series.  More on that in a bit.

 

    Our protagonist is the avid photographer and Private Eye, R.J. Decker, sometimes nicknamed “Rage” (a play upon his initials) by special friends, and “Miami” by one of his certifiably nutzo pals.  When Bobby Clinch, a local and not-very-successful bass tournament enthusiast is found dead in suspicious circumstances. Decker is hired to look into possible skullduggery.

 

    The action starts on the first page as Bobby Clinch sneaks out of the house early one morning.  The pacing is fast and the action is often over-the-top, which for this genre, is an asset.  I liked the character development done by the author; Decker, Ott, Fast Eddie Spurling, Skink, and Al Garcia were all interesting people to meet.  Those final two become recurring characters in this series, with Skink appearing in another six installments by Amazon’s count.  And let's give a quick nod to Lucas; his tenaciousness is impressive.

 

    Bass tournaments are the central focus of Double Whammy.  The title refers to a specific type of fishing lure used by the recognized tournament champion in the area, Dickie Lockhart.  To be honest, I’ve never had the slightest urge to participate in a fishing tournament, but while reading this book, I did get an appreciation for how much preparation is done for competing in one, and how much excitement is generated by fifty anglers, all on the same lake, all trying to out-fish everyone else.  And as an added bonus, I even learned how the cheat in bass tournaments.

 

    Double Whammy was first published in 1987, which means it has a lot of "outdated" items.  Decker drives a 1979 Volare, which he notes is  “stylistically the most forgettable auto” around.  That brought back old memories since I drove one of those in the 80s.  His camera uses film — imagine that! — and he has a darkroom in his home where he does his own film-development, a hobby I used to do with my dad in my teenage years.  Cassette tapes are how Decker listens to music, and there were only three Star Wars movies at that time, which you watched on videocassette.

 

    Events build to Reverend Weeb’s three-pronged money-making scheme described above.  The ending is exciting, albeit not particularly twisty, and both the good guys and the bad guys get their just desserts.  One loose end remains, and I doubt it is resolved in the next book: what will happen to Queenie?!

 

Excerpts...

    “Hey, Rage, where you at?”

    “In a motel outside New Orleans.”

    “Hmmm, sounds romantic.”

    “Very,” Decker said.  “My roommate is a 240-pound homicidal hermit.  For dinner he’s fixing me a dead fox he scraped off the highway near Ponchatoula, and after that we’re taking a leaky tin boat out on a windy lake to spy on some semi-retarded fishermen.  Don’t you wish you were here?”

    “I could fly in tomorrow, get a hotel in the Quarter.”

    “Don’t be a tease, Catherine.”  (pg. 119)

 

    “We’re here for the bass tournament.”

    “Is that right?”  Weeb eyed the rowboat disdainfully.  “Sorry, son, but this event’s not open to the general public.”

    Al Garcia said, “We’re not the general public, son.  We’re the Tile Brothers.”  Coolly he handed Charlie Weeb the receipt for the registration fee.  Weeb passed it to Deacon Johnson.

    “It’s them, all right,” Deacon Johnson reported.  “Boat number fifty, all paid up.”

    “You don’t look like brothers,” Reverend Weeb said accusingly.

    “Si, es verdad,” Jim Tile said.

    “Fo sho,” added Al Garcia.  “We true be bros.”  (pg. 268)

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 4,881 ratings and 588 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.94*/5, based on 18,429 ratings and 1,120 reviews.

 

“Just one of those days … when you feel like the spit-valve on the trombone of life.”  (pg. 314)

    If you’ve never read any of Carl Hiaasen’s books. Be aware that they generally never skimp on cusswords.  I found 28 in the first 10% of this book, which is about normal.  Racial epithets also are used, and adult situations and nudity occur on a regular basis.

 

    There were only a couple of typos, mind/mine and Scaggs/Skaggs) which still surprised me since I was reading the mass-market paperback version, published by Warner Books.  But since Scaggs was as in “Ricky Scaggs”, I’m wondering if it was a deliberate error to avoid copyright issues.

 

    Also, if you’re of the Pentecostal persuasion, you probably won’t like this book.  And if you’re a dog-lover, you should probably skip it as well.

 

    I enjoyed Double Whammy.  There were no slow spots and there was enough spoofery, wit, and outrageous events (such as the culinary delights of eating roadkill) to keep me turning the pages.  This book would make a great airport or beach read.

 

    8 Stars.  I read Double Whammy during 2023 Banned Book Week (October 1-7), which turned out to be a timely effort since Wikipedia notes that in 2017 the Texas Department of Corrections put this on its list of books that inmates in its state prisons were not allowed to read.  Neither Carl Hiaasen nor I have any idea what the reasoning for this act was.  No policemen are killed in Double Whammy, and in fact, the actions of the two main cops here, Jim Tile and Al Garcia, are quite commendable.

Nature Girl - Carl Hiaasen

   2006; 399 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Crime-Humor; Florida Crime Noir; Satire.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

    Telemarketers.  Everybody hates them.  You, me, Honey Santana, and anybody else who owns a cell phone or landline.  Some people sass back at them, others (including my son) yell into the receiver at them.  Most of us just hang up the phone and hope that they don’t call back again.

    But not Honey Santana.  She’s off her meds, which means she has a tendency to overreact to life's annoyances.  Like a telemarketer named Boyd Eisenhower, calling from Texas, and who has the misfortune of pitching a sales spiel for a can’t-miss real estate opportunity in Florida.  That just happens to be Honey’s stomping grounds.

    Harsh words ensue from Ms. Santana, and, in violation of common sense and company policy, Boyd utters some things he shouldn’t have back through the phone at Honey, then hangs up on her.  Honey Santana is left with an 800 phone number, probably phony, and a burning resolve to make Mr. Eisenhower regret using such insulting language on her.  But what can she do? 

    Heh.  Well, when she’s off her medicine and in a royal snit, there’s just about no limit to what she can cook up.

What’s To Like...

    Nature Girl is Carl Hiaasen’s 11^th book (out of 14) in what I call his “Florida Noir” group of novels.  I wouldn’t call it a series, since recurring characters are few and far between, but I like it that none of the characters here are pure white or black.  Even the telemarketers have some redeeming qualities and all of them are delightfully absurd, including my favorites, Brother Manuel and Sister Shirelle.

    As with any Hiaasen novel, almost the entire story takes place in Florida, near Everglades City (which is real), a nearby treacherous maze of swampland called Ten Thousand Islands (which is also real), and Dismal Key, a wee bit of dry ground that Sammy Tigertail retreats to (and others stumble across), which is real as well.  All these places are accurately depicted by Hiaasen; you can read about them in Wikipedia.

    The portrayal of the telemarketing business is spot on as well.  I'm at home during daylight working hours, and it's amazing how many scam calls we receive every day.  Interestingly, telemarketers know to not call too early, and to cut off the calls at 5:00.  They do this so as to not enrage hapless residents, and they even compensate for different time zones.

    The storyline introduces you to a real disorder called Asphenphosmphobia, which Google can tell you all about, but not Wikipedia, although the latter will redirect you to the synonymous term, Haphephobia.   You’ll also read the real story behind the 1800's song “Old Folks at Home”, plus learn the useful trick of how to tell a real person from a death spirit.

    As always, Carl Hiaasen throws an abundance of humor and wit into the story, plus some fascinating tidbits of Florida history.  Here, he enlightens us about the foremost Seminole chieftain, Osceola.  There’s a slew of music references; everything from Weezer and Limp Bizkit to Dire Straits and Stephen Foster.  The title comes from a cursory remark on page 186, and I chuckled at Eugenie’s bestselling novel, Storm Ghoul, which is every bit as well-written as Fifty Shades of Grey.

    The ending wraps things up satisfactorily for all concerned parties.  It isn’t particularly twisty or exciting, but it is logical on all counts.  Most (but not all) of the characters finish up happier than at the start, and I especially liked how Hiaasen resolved Boyd’s fate.  Nature Girl is a standalone novel, with no plot strings left untied for a sequel/

Kewlest New Word. . .

Cacique (n.) : a native chief.

Excerpts...

    Certain grisly suspicions were floated before the local police, but no one paid much attention until Mrs. Bonneville’s body was found in her Pontiac at the bottom of the St. Johns River.  It was her husband’s contention that Mrs. Bonneville’s Bonneville had been swept away by the onrushing flood as she wheeled out of the driveway in a frantic quest for Marlboros.  Doubt fell upon this story as soon as police divers revealed that Mrs. Bonneville had been snugly strapped into the driver’s seat.  Well known among her friends was the fact that on principle Mrs. Bonneville never buckled her seat belt, even though it was required by state law; an ardent libertarian, she opposed government meddling in all matters of personal choice.  (pg. 20)

    “I’m so psyched about tonight,” Sienna said.”  Aren’t you?”

    Skinner studied the bubbles in his beer.  He was trying hard to recall what was on the agenda.

    “Green Day, remember?” she said.  “God, Perry, don’t tell me.”

    “Sure, I remember.  They’re playin’ in Fort Myers.”

    “You said you liked ‘em.”

    “I meant it, too.”  To Skinner’s knowledge, he’d never heard any of the band’s songs; he was country to the bone.

    Sienna said, “We don’t have to go if you don’t want.  I could sell the stupid tickets on eBay in about thirty seconds.”

    “Please don’t pout.  I already said we’re going.”

    “Twice I went with you to see Willie Nelson.  Twice.”  (pg. 188)

 Eugenie Fonda sat cross-legged on the bathroom floor, listening to Sacco’s theory that Bill Gates was not only the Antichrist but also the illegitimate spawn of Jesse Helms and Grace Slick.  (pg. 78)

    If you're looking for a beach read or airport novel, Nature Girl will do nicely.  There are lots of story threads involving a bunch of hapless characters plodding hopelessly towards their combined destinies on the not-so-deserted island of Dismal Key.  It does take a while to get all the parties heading there, and for me things dragged just a bit while this was happening.  But once everybody’s on their way, the pace picks up nicely.

  Storywise, I found it a bit too easy to guess where some of those destinies were heading, in particularly those involving Honey and her son, Fry, but maybe that's because I've quite a few books by this author.

    You should know that there’s no shortage of sex and cussing, so if these things offend you, you might give Nature Girl a pass.  But I'm happy to say I learned one phrase with which to insult someone with: “rectal ulcer”.

    7½ Stars.  Nature Girl is a solid effort by Carl Hiaasen, although I think some of his other books were more exciting and more zany.  Still, it kept my interest and it's easy-on-the-brain-cells, and sometimes that's all you ask for out of a book.

Skinny Dip - Carl Hiaasen

   2004; 355 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Crime-Humor; Florida Noir; Satire.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

    To celebrate their second wedding anniversary, Chaz Perrone treated his wife Joey to a Florida cruise.  It was so romantic.  Joey adored it.

    Now, it's the last night of the cruise, and he's topped it off by suggesting they take one last stroll around the deck.  Yes, it’s way past midnight, and yes, anyone with any sense is in bed, resting up for the back-to-reality that tomorrow will bring.  But it’s still a perfectly romantic way to cap off a fantastic week.

    It’s obvious that the night will end with one last round of passion.  Joey can’t imagine any way this last night of the cruise can go wrong.

    Except when Chaz pushes her overboard, and the ship sails on without her.  Yes, that definitely has ruined the whole ambiance.

What’s To Like...

    Skinny Dip has all the usual tropes in a Carl Hiaasen Florida noir novel:  the resilient female protagonist, hiding out from the fellow who wronged her, and in the arms of a studly, loner-type male protagonist; plus a jaded detective trying to get to the bottom of everything, and a UE (Ultimate Evil) guy who is wrecking the Florida ecosystem in his own diabolical way.

    That may sound banal, but it works because Hiaasen develops each of these, along with various secondary peeps, into unique, quirky, charismatic people.  Even the bad guys are fun to meet.  There aren’t a lot of characters to keep track of; mostly it’s just the five main ones listed above, plus a goon and a granny.

    I chuckled at Benny Middenbock’s bizarre death (which is not a spoiler; he’s Joey’s first husband and is already dead when at the start of the book), and ROFL’d at Chaz’s ill-timed attempts to partake of the wonders of Viagra.  Rolvaag’s two pet albino pythons struck a chord with me; I knew a guy in college that kept a pair of these in his apartment.

    There are 32 chapters covering 355 pages, so it’s easy to find a convenient place to stop reading for the night.  Readers new to Hiaasen should know that there’s a lot of cusswords, meds, booze, sex, and adult situations in any of his Florida noir books; all balanced out by an abundance of wit and satire  This is neither a whodunit nor a police procedural.  Wikipedia calls it a “caper story”, which was a new term to me, and quite apt.

    The ending was a mixed bag.  Things didn’t build to an exciting climax, but there were some neat storyline twists, all the threads were resolved (albeit some in a bittersweet manner), everyone gets their just desserts.  Skinny Dip is a standalone novel.  Amazon claims it is part of a series called Skink, but I beg to differ.  Wikipedia’s entry for the book makes no such mention.

Kewlest New Word. . .

Scrofulous (adj.) : having a diseased run-down appearance.

Others : Pullulating (v.).

Excerpts...

    Glossy with perspiration, Tool lumbered into the kitchen to check on the entrée.  “Three more minutes,” he announced, and walked out.

    “He’s staying here with you?” Rolvaag asked.

    “Yeah.  While his double-wide gets fumigated.”

    “What’s with the highway crosses?”

    “I’m not sure,” Chaz Perrone said, “but it might have something to do with him being a deranged, half-witted sociopath.”

    “Right.”

    “He claims to be carrying a bullet slug in the crack of his butt.”

    “Everybody’s got problems,” Rolvaag said.  (pg. 180)

    “Joey was the star of our book club, without a doubt!” Rose began.  “She was the one who got us hooked on Margaret Atwood and A.S. Byatt and P.D. James,” Rose bubbled.  “Heck, we would’ve wasted six whole weeks on Jane Austen if it weren’t for Joey.  She was a sweetie pie, sure, but she was also a firecracker.  Not afraid to kick off her shoes, no ma’am.  You should’ve heard her reading the juicy parts from Jean Auel’s latest!  Lord, she almost made the walls blush.”

    Stranahan thought: My Joey?  (pg. 270)

 “Chaz is slicker than pig snot on a doorknob, or however the saying goes.”  (pg. 52)

    There’s a different environmental theme in each Hiaasen novel, and I was intrigued by the one used here: the runoff from using chemical fertilizers is wreaking havoc on the Everglades flora and fauna due to small, but persistent, amounts of phosphates in them.

    This piqued my interest because the company I work for manufactures chemical fertilizers, and Florida is one of our key markets.  We do not make any phosphate-containing products, however.  And while I don’t question Carl Hiaasen’s research diligence, I am surprised that such a small amount of phosphate (300 parts per billion may sound like a big number, but it’s actually less than ½ part per million) can cause so much damage to the swamp ecosystem.

    But this is mostly just a technical musing on my part.  I don’t really have anything to quibble about in Skinny Dip, so I'm reduced to nitpicking

    8½ Stars.  ANAICT, Skinny Dip is one of Carl Hiaasen’s better-known and highly-regarded novels, and personally I found it to be fully deserving of that reputation.  This was my sixth Carl Hiaasen book (although the first since 2014), and overall I seem to be warming to his style of storytelling.

Bad Monkey - Carl Hiaasen

    2013; 315 pages.  New Author? : No.  Book #14 in Hiaasen’s crime novel series.  Genre : Florida Crime Noir; Humor.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

    Poor Nick Stripling has lost an arm.  But he probably isn’t too concerned, since that’s all that’s left of him after the sharks had a feeding frenzy when he fell overboard.  But some people think it might have been murder most foul.

    Andrew Yancy wants to get to the bottom of this, but strictly for the brownie points.  Once upon a time, and not too long ago, he was a detective in the Miami Police Department.  But after two demotions, he currently finds himself in the groveling position of Health Inspector.  Or, as they call it in the business, Roach Patrol.

What’s To Like...

    Bad Monkey is the latest in Carl Hiaasen’s Florida Crime Noir series of books.  “Series” may be a misnomer, since Hiaasen conjures up a new hero in almost every book.  Most of them are amoral characters, and Andrew Yancy is no exception.  He has anger management issues, and his present career demise is totally deserved.

    The rest of the characters, including the bad monkey, are hilariously fascinating.  So are the various, seemingly unrelated plotlines, which Hiaasen once again manages to deftly pull together into a satisfying, albeit somewhat rushed, climactic ending. 

    Besides the captivating crime storyline, Hiaasen turns the spotlight on a number of scams that plague Florida, including ruinous land development in Florida, abundant Medicare fraud, and duping naïve tourists into thinking they actually caught a major trophy fish.  As usual, the story isn’t a whodunit.  Instead you tag along with Yancy as he tries to figure out a way a bring the baddies to justice.  But don’t get too comfortably numb; the baddies are resourceful, and there’s a major plot twist just when you least expect it.  Hiaasen knows how to tell a story.

Excerpts...

    “Who else did Charlie tell about the arm?”

    “Nobody but me,” Madeline said emphatically.  “Soon as he sobered up he got semi-paranoid about it.  But the money, you know, that was different.  The night after he got paid he took me to Louie’s for dinner and bought a round for everyone at the bar, two hundred bucks.”  She dragged hard and then flicked the butt into a rain puddle.  “Nobody said he was Alvin Einstein.”

     Yancy thought it was fortunate that Phinney and Madeline hadn’t pooled their genes.  (loc. 1379)

    A bartender one-third his age pretended to be interested in him.  Claspers didn’t mind being strung along.  The bartender had stellar fake boobs and a quick sense of humor.  He considered telling her about his years as a big-time smuggler, but he doubted it would improve his chances of getting laid.  Once upon a time, sure, absolutely – but hers was a generation that grew up on homegrown or Humboldt and thought Panama Red was a merlot.    (loc. 2699)

Kindle Details...

    Being the newest addition to Hiaasen’s “adult” Kindle offerings, Amazon sells Bad Monkey for $8.99.  Most of his older books go for $5.99.  I borrowed my copy through my local library for free, although there are usually a half-dozen or so people with "holds" on Bad Monkey.

”She was an outlaw and a schizo, but I loved her anyway.”  (loc. 4583)

    Hiaasen’s books are formulaic.  I make this statement with statistical confidence since Bad Monkey was the fifth book I’ve read by him.  The elements of a Carl Hiaasen novel generally include the following :

    1. A psycho protagonist down on his luck.

    2. An equally messed-up girl (or several) to help him back on his feet.

    3. Inclement weather, usually a hurricane.

    4. An incongruous animal.  Or two.

    5. Gullible tourists.

    6. Greedy land developers.

    7. Equally psycho bad guys…

    8. …who eventually get their just desserts.

    It took me a couple books to get used to point #1, but I’ve made my peace with Hiaasen’s antiheroes.  I’m now kewl with his “two wrongs make for a page-turning storyline” literary style.  The elements may be repetitive, but the wit, characters, and plot details are always fresh.

    8 Stars.  There’s nothing deep or epic about Bad Monkey, but it’s a great “light read”.  Subtract 1 star if you prefer your protagonist to have the morals of a Boy Scout.

Lucky You - Carl Hiaasen

   1997; 449 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Humor, Florida Crime Noir.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

    Lucky JoLayne Lucks.  She’s just won the state Lotto, and it’s worth 28 million dollars.  Actually, only 14 million, since there were two winning tickets.  But hey, that’s still plenty of money for each of them.  It’s too bad the people with the other winning ticket don’t see it that way.

   Unlucky Tom Krome.  His newspaper has sent him to interview JoLayne, and write a soft, feel-good article.  The kind he hates.  To boot, his wife refuses to give him a divorce, and his mistress of two weeks is leaving him.

    Go ahead and make the trip, Tom.  Madcap mayhem lies a-waitin’.

What’s To Like...
    If it’s a book by Carl Hiaasen, you know it will be set in Florida, have interesting and wacko characters, violence, romance, and above all zany humor.  Lucky You is no exception.

    There are a slew of plotlines, involving everything from the lottery tickets to miracle rackets, turtles, shopping malls, militias, and more.  The pace is quick, and the action roams up and down the length of Florida.  Some of the themes Hiaasen examines are hilarious – a NATO invasion of the USA, the face of Jesus in an oil-spill on the road, and the Zen of being a Hooters waitress.

    But Hiaasen also blends in some more serious themes – interracial relationships, water management in Florida, and xenophobic tea-baggers (written several years before tea-baggers arose).

    The two protagonists – Tom and JoLayne – both have a streak of anti-hero in them – especially when it comes to stable relationships.  And the baddies may be all bad, but there’s also a smidgen of charm in their paranoid stupidity.  In addition to the violence, there are drugs and alcohol; so don’t read this if you’re a prude about these things.  Ditto if you happen to be a xenophobic tea-bagger, you won't like this book at all.

    As is always true with Hiaasen novels – this is a standalone story, with all the plot threads and themes being resolved nicely at the end.  The tale may be low-brow, but the writing is topnotch.

Excerpts...

    “I’ve got shitty news: Tom Krome’s dead.”
    “No.”
    “Looks that way.  The arson guys found a body in the house.”
    “No!” Sinclair insisted.  “It’s not possible.”
    “Burned beyond recognition.”
    “But Tom went to Miami with the lottery woman!”
    “Who told you that?”
    “The man with the turtles.”
    “I see,” said the managing editor.  “What about the man with the giraffes – what did he say?  And the bearded lady with penguins – did you ask her?”  (pg. 194)

    Shiner remembered what Bodean Gazzer had said about seat belts being part of the government’s secret plot to “neutralize the citizenry.”  If you’re wearing seat belts, Bode had explained, it’ll be harder to jump out of the car and escape, once the NATO helicopters start landing on the highways.  That’s the whole reason they made the seat belt law, Bode had said, to make sure millions of Americans would be strapped down and helpless when the global attack was launched.  (pg. 229)

“There wasn’t much difference, when you got down to the core morality of it, between Mickey Mouse and a fiberglass Madonna.”  (pg. 13)
    Lucky You was my fourth Carl Hiaasen book, and thus far, the one I've most enjoyed.  I’m not sure if I’m slowly getting acclimated to his style of storytelling, or if his books are “hit-or-miss”, and the last two have been “hits”.  I think in this case, it was because some of the themes – racial bigotry, gun nuts, and religious fraud – resonate with me.

    It’s got to be hard to keep coming up with fresh stories when your self-imposed geographic limitations are the borders of Florida, but Hiaasen seems to be up to the task.  8½ Stars.

Tourist Season - Carl Hiaasen

1986; 378 pages.  Genre : Florida Crime Noir.  New Author? : No.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

    Florida is overcrowded.  Too many tourists and convention-goers come every year, to say nothing of the slew of geezers who have retired here permanently for the year-round sunshine.  Thanks to the Chamber of Commerce, swamps are being drained and artificial islands created, all to lure more visitors.

    Someone ought to persuade all the interlopers to stay away or move back north.  The alternative is to simply start killing them off.  Come to think of it, the latter might just bring about the former.

What's To Like...
    Tourist Season was published in 1986, 15 years before 9/11, when terrorists could still be portrayed as something other than utterly evil fanatics.  Here, the group is called Las Noches de Diciembre (The Nights of December) and they are inept, committed, funny, and ruthless.

    The protagonist is Brian Keyes, a PI who used to be a journalist.  He's got strings to pull at both the newspapers and the Miami PD, and he somehow makes women want to go to bed with him.  Besides trying to stop LNdD, he has to bodyguard Kara Lynn Shivers, this year's Orange Bowl Queen.   Kara's a much stronger character than your stereotypical bikini-beauty-bimbo.

    What's really kewl about Tourist Season is the equal treatment Carl Hiaasen gives to both the terrorists and the good guys.  Yes, LNdD are a bunch of psychopathic losers, but at least they have a noble cause.  Kinda.  You might even find yourself pulling for Pavlov, the trained crocodile.  (Do not call him an alligator!).

Kewlest New Word...
Insouciance : having or showing freedom from worries or trouble.

Excerpts...
    It was two years ago that Jenna had dumped him for Wiley - Wiley, of all people!  Why couldn't it have been an artist, or a concert musician, or some anorexic-looking poet from the Grove?  Anyone but Skip Wiley - and right in the bitter worst of the Callie Davenport business.  What a couple: Jenna, who adored Godunov and Bergman; and Wiley, who once launched a write-in campaign to get Marilyn Chambers an Oscar.  (pg. 61)

    The kennel club bomb actually was a small land mine, a rudimentary imitation claymore, which Jesus Bernal had buried on the second turn of the track.  The greyhound that triggered the mine was a speedy dam named Blistered Sister who went off at 20-to-1.  Literally.  One second there were eight lank dogs churning along the rail, and the next they were airborne, inside-out.  It was a mess.  The blast took out a sixty-foot stretch of racetrack and disrupted betting for hours.  Blistered Sister, whose brindle carcass landed closest to the finish wire, was ruled the winner...   (pgs. 177-78)

"Strangled to death is redundant, doesn't he know that?" (pg. 106)
    Tourist Season made me laugh. and that's always a plus.  It was Carl Hiaasen's debut novel, and not surprisingly, it seems a bit uneven.  Some of the deaths are given in gory detail, others are curiously sanitized.  The struggle between the good guys and the bad guys is spotlighted throughout the length of the book, yet the ending itself dangles.

    On a deeper level, though, Tourist Season is Carl Hiaasen's commentary on the state of the State of Florida - the urbanization, the eco-wrecking, and the loss of heritage.  In that regard, the book succeeds nicely.  7½ Stars, and Floridans can add another 1½ stars for topicality.

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.

Sick Puppy - Carl Hiaasen

1999; 513 pages. Genre : Witty crime. Overall Rating : C+..

    Greedy lobbyists and unscrupulous land developers want to turn an unspoiled island on the coast of Florida into golf courses, condos, shopping malls, and high-rises. But first they need to pull some political strings to get funding for a new bridge to connect it to the mainland.

What's To Like...
    The story moves at a decent pace. There's a dopily adorable black lab (the "sick puppy"), and two living, breathing, cosmetically-enhanced, immigrant Barbie Dolls. It has an "Animal House" type ending. The demise of the hired thug is hilarious.

   .OTOH, as oxymoronic as it sounds, the predictable plot requires a huge suspension of belief. One example - the baddies kill their own "environmental specialist" for no discernible reason other than to establish that they're the baddies. Then there's the characters. Here's four of the main ones...
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Twilly Spree : Has anger-management issues and a thing about littering. Runs elderly ladies off the road for chucking a cigarette butt. Beats teenagers to a bloody pulp for tossing a beer can. Steals dogs. Sleeps with other men's wives.
Desie Stoat : Repeatedly betrays her hubbie's political deals, for no apparent reason. Cheats on him too.
Twilly's Mom : Sees nothing wrong with those two showing up at her house - with the badly beaten-up hubby. Helps tie him to a chair and puts a pillowcase over his head. Her parting words to Twilly when the three are leaving - "Try not to hurt him too bad, dear."
Skink : Ex-governor. Now runs around the Everglades like a psycho hermit. Beats up people to get information. Kills badly-hurt guys in a slow, painful way.

A Blacker Shade of Dark...
    Okay, you're probably not impressed with those four. Here's the deal. They're the good guys. Which gives you some idea how vile the bad guys are.
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    Twilly initially crosses paths with Desie's hubby (Palmer Stoat), when the latter tosses some fast-food wrappers out the car window. His vengeance - dumping 10 tons of garbage onto Palmer's Beemie convertible, and 7,000 dung beetles into his house. Is there some morality lesson I should be learning from that?
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    Weirdly, I eventually ended up pulling for Palmer, despite him having no redeemable qualities. The good guys keep beating him up. The bad guys keep beating him up. His wife and dog leave him. His expensive cigars are fake. All he wants to do is be a crooked deal-maker.
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    I am told that some of Hiaasen's other stuff is funnier. So we'll give Sick Puppy a C+ because there are just enough funny parts, and at least the good guys aren't pathetically boy-scoutish. And resolve to read at least one more of his books.