Skinny Dip would make a great Coen brothers movie

In the first chapter of Skinny Dip, a younger married couple named Joey and Charles ‘Chaz’ Perrone is celebrating their anniversary on a cruise. It is late at night and they are out walking along the upper deck alone. When the husband drops his room key, he bends over to pick it up, then grabs his wife by the ankles and flips her over the rail. It is such a long drop down to the water that Joey’s dress is knocked off on impact, hence the name of the book. As she floats there watching the cruise ship drift away, Joey has no idea why her husband decided to kill her. Instead of being a whodunit story, this book is about the wife’s quest to find out why.

Even though Joey was a swimmer in college, eight hours in the water would be a test for anyone. She is eventually saved by finding an abandoned bale of Jamaican marijuana, and she floats on top of it as the Gulf Stream carries her all the way to a small island off the coast of southern Florida. On the island lives a retired cop by the name of Mick Stranahan, and he takes a special interest in Joey’s story. Rather than go directly to the police, Joey convinces Mick to help her spy on her husband and figure out why he wanted her dead. If he wanted a divorce, she said, all he had to do was ask.

Skinny Dip is so criminally comical that it could almost be categorized as a dark comedy. Given the plot, it could have turned into a sappy Lifetime ‘men/husbands are evil’ movie kind of story, but instead it is fun and original from beginning to end. Author Carl Hiassen is a resident of southern Florida and has written plenty of articles about the effort to save the Everglades. He uses his knowledge of the subject as a major plot device in this novel. Chaz Perrone plays an inept biologist involved with water testing in the Florida swamps and several key scenes take place in and around the swamps. Some of Hiassen’s side stories about the Everglades seem a little out of place in the novel, but he never got too preachy on the subject. I enjoyed Hiassen’s clear and natural writing style and his use of phonetic spelling to convey accents. He kept it fun by never letting the story get too serious.

I did enjoy reading this novel, but it is not very believable. If Joey had gone right to the police after she was found, the whole matter would have been less complicated. I also found it hard to believe that Mick, a former police investigator, would so easily get involved in the scheme without going to the police. When you find out the real reason why Chaz decided to kill Joey, it seemed kind of weak. The story makes Chaz out to be such a villain that it never explains Joey’s decision to marry him beyond a simple “Everybody makes mistakes” excuse. The whole matter could have been resolved after the first chapter if the characters had behaved like reasonable people, but then there would be no story.

Skinny Dip seems like a perfect candidate for a Coen brothers (Fargo, Raising Arizona) movie. As I read the book, I visualized some of the Coen movie regular actors in the various roles. Chaz would be a perfect role for Billy Bob Thornton, and I think the Mick Stranahan character would work for George Clooney. There’s a burly redneck bodyguard who collects highway memorial crosses and he would be great if played by John Goodman. I’m not sure who could play Joey, but there are plenty of pretty blondes out there that could handle the role. There’s enough quirkiness and humor mixed with bumbling criminal behavior to make this a great movie.