Skinny Dip Audio CD – CD, May 3, 2005

Joey Perrone is beautiful, rich and married -- but none of that helps her to cope when her husband, Chaz, tosses her off a cruise ship on their second anniversary. Fortunately, Joey was a competition-level swimmer back in the day, and the distant lights of the Florida coastline become much more attainable when she bumps into a floating bale of discarded Jamaican marijuana, which makes a pretty good raft when the chips are down.When she's rescued by remote island dweller and former cop Mick Stanahan, Joey chooses not to contact the authorities about her near-murder. Instead, she decides a little psychological torture is in order while she tries to figure out just why Chaz opted for homicide over a no-fault divorce.For Chaz, who believes (with good reason) that his wife is dead, there are very few good days in his future."Skinny Dip" is a wonderfully entertaining story, and I owe my enjoyment of it all to Ron, a pulmonary technician at Lancaster General Hospital. Ron, upon learning of my fondness for writer Christopher Moore, extolled the wonders of Carl Hiaasen -- all while putting me through a series of rigorous breathing exercises that left me gasping and reaching for a pen to jot down the author's name.Hiaasen doesn't spin any modern folklore into his stories -- unlike Moore with his vampires, demons, trickster gods and the like -- but otherwise, the two writers could be spiritual twins.Besides Joey, Chaz and Mick, Hiaasen peoples his story with a colorful array of supporting characters.Karl Rolvaag is a Minnesota Norwegian cop, miserable living in the Florida heat, who's assigned to the case after Joey "vanishes" from the cruise ship. Red Hammernut is a thuggish Florida businessman/farmer who wants nothing to do with the federal government's efforts to save the Everglades at his expense -- and he's willing to spend a great deal of money and effort to circumvent them. Earl Edward O'Toole, hirsute and beefy, is addicted to pain-relief patches, collects roadside memorials and is willing to thump people as his duty or mood requires. And then there's Maureen, a lonely, feisty old woman, dying of cancer in a nursing home, who's willing to trade her meds for a little company and isn't afraid to get a little tart where bad manners are concerned.Hiaasen gets extra points in my book for throwing in a few brief but informative rants on the state of the Everglades and the government's too-little, too-late attempts to preserve them. I knew a bit about their all-important natural diversity, but Hiaasen taught me a thing or two about the once-massive swamp's vital impact on both the ecological and economical viability of Florida's southern end.Heck, a little consciousness-raising rarely goes amiss. In my native Lancaster County, where rich soil, ancient trees and pure water are often sacrificed to the cause of development, it's easy to empathize.Bottom line, I thoroughly enjoyed this refreshing "Skinny Dip" in Hiaasen's imagination, and I am eager to read more from this clever and talented writer. It looks like he's been fairly prolific in recent years, so I expect I won't have to wait too long.by Tom Knapp, Rambles.NET editor

Hiaasen returns with his over the top humor and satire with an ecological mission and delivers his ususal critique on the state of how we are doing with saving the earth. Dr. Chaz Perrone is a biologist who is looking for a short cut to the finish line of a life of liesure and thinks he has found it working for the State of Florida and checking the water of the Everglades. The area he is in charge of is in some difficulty thanks to the agri-businesses of Red Hammernut who are polluting the Everglades in a major way. Red has Chaz on his payroll to make sure that the water samples he takes do not show any problems. It is a very cozy and profitable relationship for Chaz until he believes that his lovely wife, Joey, has learned what he is doing and the thought of losing the largesse of his benefactor drives Chaz to a desperate act which sets in motion a series of events as only Hiassen can write them. On their second anniversary Chaz and Joey are on a cruise and during a moonlight stroll on deck, Joey finds herself tossed off the ship. Her last thought before hitting the ocean is "I married an a--hole." The fall alone might have killed her, but Joey was a champion swimmer during her college days and she turns the fall into a dive and then manages to survive by clinging to a bale of marijuana until she is rescued by a former cop, Mick Stranahan, who is living on a remote island. The remainder of the book involves Joey's desire to see that her husband pays dearly for trying to kill her, but not in the traditional sense. There are many quirky characters and some ingenious and hillarious goings on. It is pure Hiassen and will satisfy his many loyal fans.

If you loved Hiaasen's humour but hated the really sick parts of some of his novels, this is for you. There is virtually none of the imaginative gore that permeated his other books. Instead, the violence is almost purely psychological. I don't really miss the gore as gore - Hiaasen is the only gory novelist I like - but I do miss the oddball imagination that went into creating it.This book is almost entirely realistic and lacks the zany creativity that made the other books truly special. It has a simple suburban backdrop, very much unlike the rich imagry he created in the theme park (Native Tongue) or journalistic (Tourist Season) environments.Skink has a couple of bit part appearances which will be almost impossible to understand if you have not read his earlier books.This book has a truly bizarre plot flaw. Joey, our heroine, was the victim of a failed murder plot by her ex-husband. Her ex-husband starts moving her stuff out of his house, and she comes back, gets into the house with the key in its usual hiding place, and brings her favourite provocative black dress back in to remind him of what he was missing. If that had happened to me, I would have understood the precise situation I was in and act on it, since it's a very obvious feminine thing to do. He thought it was an anonymous villain. He changes the locks on the house but doesn't change the alarm code nor the key hiding place. Are there really people that dumb?I don't think so, but this book is still a great quick read and it's interesting to see how Hiaasen and his characters are evolving.

I've read all of the John Niven novels and loved them. Looking for a similar author I came across Carl Hiaasen who sounded promising. If I like them there are loads of books to read, all of which seem to review highly so I was hopeful!32 chapters and 475 pages.This is a crime story but written with a good dose of dark humour so it did what I wanted. The book kept me chuckling all the way through with it's black comedy and ridiculous situations. The characters were setup well and given plenty of back story to explain their current situations/mindsets.Joey has been pushed overboard from a cruise ship by her husband. The book is then about her getting revenge.The violence is funny, the forgery is amateurish and the black mail improbable but all the elements together make for a funny book.I suspect there are a few cultural references that I missed (being from the UK) and I certainly hadn't been aware of the ecological problems in the Everglades but the heavy emphasis on this was easy to forgive.There is a particular technique that the author uses which I enjoyed. We move between Chaz and Joey, both in the third person - often weird things happen to Chaz that are not explained but become much clearer when we see the same event from Joey's perspective.I think I need to read a few more to completely get the author's humour but I am keen. He's not John Niven but he's good enough to tempt me in.

This is a raunchy, larger-than-life rollercoaster of a story. Gross caricatures and oddballs play out the drama in the very worst man-made environments, balanced against a precious eco-system in this smart Florida-based satire. A rollicking good read, with some hilarious moments to do with sex and lust. Lots of symbolism for man's general crapness. The book doesn't lose any pace and rips along. Absolutely loved it.

A funny and very moral tale for us all. Carl Hiassen should be on every school curriculum

Couldn't read this. The first book I bought by this guy, (Sick Puppy ??), I really loved. Then I bought two more and I read that they are supposedly FUNNY. I was so shocked. I gave away the two I bought without reading them. To Mike. Are you reading this Mike? I hope not.Zany, yes. But 'funny'???

Bought for my husband as he likes this author. He enjoyed reading it so done the job.