Let's Go Swimmin' Altogether!

Joey Perrone went for a swim unwillingly, "helped" over the rail of a mammoth cruise liner by Chaz, her husband of two years. The wannabe widower didn't count on Joey's swimming ability or a bale of abandoned pot she could press into service as a life raft, so the pretty blonde would-be drowning victim awoke a couple of days later on a remote island inhabited only by Mick Stranahan and his dumber-than-a-box-of-rocks Doberman Strom. And boy, was Joey pissed!

Joey's biologist husband -"Dr. Perrone, please!" - soon demonstrated an innate ability to lie (rather badly) through his pearly whites, a startlingly poor grasp of elementary biology, and both a metabolism and a moral compass completely controlled by the smaller and lower of his two heads. Given that his wife (a trust-fund baby with an eight-figure bank account) left absolutely nothing to him in the will, the investigator assigned to the missing wife's case could find no obvious motive for murder and thirteen million for him to want her alive. But the putative widower's post-drowning bedroom antics and his surprising lack of knowledge about biology had Detective Rolvaag just a little curious.

On a remote island out in Biscayne Bay, Joey and Mick combined forces to determine why on earth Chaz would want his wife dead. The two hatch a plot to first drive him bonkers and then blackmail him into spilling his guts. But they hadn't counted on the megabucks of Chaz's sub rosa "sponsor" or the appearance of a defensive tackle-sized mound of hair sent by the big boss to babysit and/or bodyguard the alleged biologist. As their wicked little plan wound ever tighter about the hapless Chaz, Mick and Joey found themselves having more fun that the law allows - and getting away with it.


Sometimes when you read the newest book by a familiar author, you come to the realization that s/he's just punching slightly different keys on the word processor from the last time around. True, diehard fans of most series pretty much demand a narrow range of character, setting, and plot, and many a writer has gotten filthy rich by pandering to their readers with formulaic "installment" fiction - see Robert Parker, for instance. Some writers refuse to be trapped in the narrow rut of formula - witness John Grisham's insistence on breaking out with such "non-lawyer-murder-mystery fiction" as A Painted House and Bleachers. Perhaps such rebellion is a sign that a writer has truly made it - s/he can write whatever comes to mind and not worry about the readership.

Some authors resist the formula in a different way - and of those authors, one of my favorites is that darkly humorous chronicler of the Florida Everglades, Carl Hiaasen. After a couple of years with but one children's book (Hoot) to show, Hiaasen finally returns with Skinny Dip, and his fans won't be disappointed. Not much, anyway.


Given that Hiaaasen penned Skinny Dip, you can bet your booties that certain themes (and a certain character) will appear in his tale. Of course the bad guys will be either developers, cane growers, or some other flavor of rapist of what little that remains of Florida's wildscape. Certainly, the good guys will be nature-loving loners and "little guys"; and yes, the Skink will put in an appearance. In other words, it's essentially the same plot that Hiaasen has used to great advantage in such other morality plays wrapped up in piles of abject silliness as Striptease, Sick Puppy, and Native Tongue.

So Hiaasen gets a little formulaic: what's not to like? Actually, nothing, because even if Carl Hiaasen follows a consistent plan, he still cranks out a heckuva yarn. It's full of goofy characters, and they're new ones every time. You'll find such oddballs as the mountain of hair Tool, with his collection of roadside memorial crosses and that poacher's bullet wedged just beneath the skin of his butt crack; a hairdresser who shaves her pubic hair in the outline of a shamrock (and dyes it kelly green); and a displaced Minnesotan detective longing for the cool of a Minneapolis winter. Skinny Dip is chockablock full of despicable villains - from a land-raping "farmer" who bears an uncanny resemblance to a Ferengi (and therefore to H. Ross Perot) to that slimy bed-weasel Chaz, whose only real interest in biology is keeping his divots as small as possible. It's a love story (twice over), and it's a little morality play. And it has a dancing bear.


Though generally shelved among the mysteries, Hiaasen's tales are rarely "mysterious" in the general sense. In that respect, Skinny Dip is no different: readers know from the first page "whodunit," and the real mystery is always just how cleverly the good guys will get even. Hiaasen writes about the redemption of man and the rescue of nature, and the little guy always wins out over greed and power. Would that it were the case in real life.



previously-reviewed topics mentioned in the text:

Back Story by Rober Parker
Bleachers John Grisham
Hoot! by Carl Hiaasen