Skinny Dip - Softcover

Hiaasen, Carl

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0446695564 ISBN 13: 9780446695565

Publisher: Grand Central Pub, 2005

Synopsis

Chaz Perrone night be the only marine scientist in the world who doesn't know which way the Gulf Stream runs, but he's out to make a killing--by doctoring water samples for a ruthless agribusiness tycoon illegally dumping fertilizer into the endangered Everglades. When Chaz suspects that his wife Joey is on to his scam, he pushes her overboard from a cruise liner. Unfortunately for Chaz, she doesn't die in the plunge. Clinging blindly to a bale of Jamaican pot, Joey Perrone is plucked from the ocean by former cop (and current loner) Mick Stranahan. But instead of rushing to the police to report the crime. Joey enlists Mick's and to help her stay "dead" and haunt her husband. Meanwhile, Chaz's cold-blooded partners in pollution grow uneasy about his ineptitude and increasingly erratic behavior, and Mick discovers that six failed marriages haven't killed the skewed romantic in him after all. Skinny Dip, Carl Hiaasen's biggest bestseller to date, was published in hardcover (Knopf, 7/04 with a first printing of 400,000 copies, hitting the New York Times bestseller list at #2, and the "Los Angeles Times" and "Washington Post" bestseller at #2. Warner has had a phenomenal track record with the paperback editions of Carl Hiaasen's novels "Basket Case (1/03). "Sick Puppy (2001). "Lucky You (1998). "Stormy Weather (1997) and "Strip Tease (1994) have sold over 2.1 million copies combined. Warner Books is planning a major promotional push for all of Carl Hiaasen's trade paperbacks in 2005. Hiaasen's brand of irreverent humor has been critically praised and has vaulted his books to bestseller status. "Sick Puppy spent 10 weeks on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list and 11 weeks on the "Publishers Weekly list; and "Stormy Weather also hit the New York Times hardcover list.

About this title

Review

Skinny Dip is a highly pleasurable reminder that Carl Hiaasen is one of the most quirky and entertaining of modern crime writers. His shadow on the genre has been so massive that his idiosyncratic, brittle-edged prose and sardonic humour may be found served up in the work of a host of imitators. There is no doubt that Hiaasen is at the top of the tree in his chosen field – and if a certain faltering has been evident of late, admirers were more than ready to be patient. Skinny Dip is a signal that the worries of Hiaasen admirers are at an end – the Master is back on form.

The protagonist here is a woman, the luckless Joey Perrone. Joey has not made the wisest matrimonial choice, and her lowlife spouse Chaz has dumped her in the briny from the deck of a luxury cruise liner. She survives – but is her first action to shop her treacherous husband to the police? No, Joey has other ideas. She opts to maintain the fiction that she is now fish food, and inaugurates a little canny retaliation. Utilising her own support group – along with several individuals who have no love for Chaz – she begins to even the score.

This is vintage Hiaasen, with all the old splenetic energy back in place, along with the scorching one-liners that were the author’s traditional stock-in-trade. Joey is a wonderful heroine, and the off-the-wall gallery of characters she encounters in her fightback against her husband are well up to the colourful standards we expect. --Barry Forshaw

Review

"Slick, swift and gloriously funny" (Sunday Telegraph)

"The undisputed master of organized chaos... His satire is a fierce unmuzzled snarl, swiftly followed by a painfully ironic bite. Quite simply, brilliant" (The Sunday Times)

"America's finest satirical novelist... the blazing conscience of the sunshine state" (Observer)

"Florida's poet laureate - the chronicler of its corruption, craziness and exploited ecology... a unique satirical talent" (Financial Times)

"The funniest crime novelist to put pen to paper" (Evening Standard)

About this edition

• Publisher: Grand Central Pub
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0446695564
• ISBN 13: 9780446695565
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 355