Carl Hiaasen Takes On The Music Industry.

Carl Hiaasen is a South Florida writer who has developed a pretty large following over the past 10 years or so. He has written 8 humorous novels and a short treatise on the Disney Corporation and how it's harming Florida as much as it's helping it. He also writes a syndicated newspaper column and has published two collections of his columns.

Basket Case is Hiaasen's most recent novel and it represents a departure from the tone of his previous novels. In his previous ones, the reader was introduced to the seamy side of South Florida and given good guys to root for and villains to hiss at. Many times, the characters would find themselves in rather wacky situations and the villains would meet rather gruesome comeuppances (In one instance, a baddie wound up left to die in the Everglades with a Club (the thing used to lock steering wheels) clamped around his mouth). The common thread was that usually the villains were out to do something to really harm Florida or its people (Videotaping the survivors of a major hurricane, overdeveloping an area so that they could build a major resort and fill their pockets).

Basket Case is a departure from those previous stories. You still have the South Florida backdrop, memorable characters and great dialogue. Yet the villains this time are not evil land developers or polluters. This time the villains are high rollers in the music industry. I get the feeling that after writing 7 novels about the destruction of Florida by big bad government and big bad corporations, Hiaasen just wanted to have fun with this one. And he succeeds wildly.

The main character is Jack Taggar, an obituary writer for a small South Florida paper. Taggar (the first=person narrator of the story) was once an investigative reporter, until he did something to annoy the paper's editor. As the novel begins, Taggar has stumbled on to what may be a promising story to get him back in good graces with the heads of the newspaper. The story is about the accidental death of a washed-up rock star named Jimmy Stoma. Stoma, who had once fronted a punk rock band called the Slut Puppies, met his untimely demise in a diving accident off of the Bahamas. Or at least it looks that way on the surface. Taggar starts to investigate and discovers that things are not as they seem.

Of course, in a Hiaasen novel the plot is not what draws people in. What draws them in are the characters. This one is populated with many memorable ones. First off, there's Taggar himself. A young maverick reporter who refuses to play by the rules, his approach to journalism is similar to that of his creator. Cleo Rio (not her real name) is Stoma's widow who appears to be grieving over his loss, yet is also hungry for fame and money. Then we have Cuban refugee Juan who is a sportswriter for the same paper as well as Taggar's roommate. Juan is quite street smart and a trick shot with any kind of gun. Emma Cole is Taggar's boss who is significantly older and whom he may or may not wind up having an affair of sorts with. Then there are two typical South Florida thugs who work for one of the aforementioned characters, Taggar's former girlfriend and her especially memorable daughter, who is star-struck. And of course, the young kid around the newsroom.

What makes this novel especially entertaining is the many stabs Hiaasen takes at the music industry. From the subtle ones (RIAA president Hilary "Mrs. I Need More Money, even though I could buy The Empire State Building" Rosen, Courtney Love) to the not so subtle ones (The boy band/girl diva fad, the use of a character name as a stab at that classic of pretension "Macarthur Park"), each of them hit the nail right over the head. Keep your eyes open to see if you can spot them all. But don't let that detract from your enjoyment of the book.

Basket Case is a humorous, fun page-turner with sleazy characters and enjoyable satire. It's one of those books you can read on a long drive somewhere. Definitely check it out.