Skinny Dip (Skink) - Softcover

Hiaasen, Carl

Softcover

ISBN 10: 110197303X ISBN 13: 9781101973035

Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2016

Synopsis

Chaz Perrone may care more about Hummers than hammerheads, but he's done pretty well for himself as a marine biologist, doctoring water samples so that an agribusiness tycoon can continue dumping fertilizer into the Everglades. When Chaz suspects that his wife, Joey Perrone, has figured out his scam, he resolves to push her overboard a cruise liner into the seething Atlantic. But if Chaz is a subpar scientist, he's an even worse killer. Joey, clinging blindly to a bale of Jamaican pot, is plucked from the ocean by a rugged stranger. Instead of rushing to the authorities, she seizes the opportunity to stay dead and, with her new friend's help, screw with Chaz until he screws himself. Add in an ill-tempered detective with a penchant for albino pythons, an oddly hirsute bodyguard addicted to fentanyl, and an unscrupulous boss growing uneasy about his lackey's increasingly erratic behavior . . . and Chaz's life is about to get a whole lot more interesting.

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

"A screwball delight so full of bright, deft, beautifully honed humor.... You'd follow [Hiaasen] anywhere." --The New York Times

"A whopping cannonball splash of fun.... Hooray for Hiaasen's world." --Los Angeles Times

"Barking mad.... Here Hiaasen is at his best." --The Baltimore Sun

"It doesn't do Carl Hiaasen justice to call him Florida's funniest state product.... Hiaasen is something bigger: a superb national satirist [and] a great American writer." --Entertainment Weekly

"Hilarious.... Like the characters, the plot is a hoot, but the real laughs are in Hiaasen's telling." --People (Critics' Choice)

"Confident and determinedly wacky.... Skinny Dip thrives when Hiaasen and his heroes let their prankster spirits run amok.... Riotous fun." --A.V. Club

"Bitingly satirical, sublimely zany, and deeply satisfying." --Kirkus Reviews

"Hiaasen's signature mix of hilariously over-the-top villains, lovable innocents, and righteous indignation at what mankind has done to his beloved Florida wilderness is all present in riotous abundance.... Hiaasen's books are so enjoyable it's always a sad moment when they end." --Publishers Weekly

"Another delirious romp through the swamps of South Florida from the irrepressible Carl Hiaasen.... A corker, chock-full of belly laughs and blistering truths." --Booklist (starred review)

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 110197303X
• ISBN 13: 9781101973035
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 480