. It's another early Carl Hiaasen novel, with his usual skewering of South Florida's excesses. This time, it's plastic surgery. It's funny and rather gross- after reading about a nose job and liposuction gone wrong, I decided that plastic surgery is definitely not for me! Some of Hiaasen's best characters are in this one- such as ex-investigator Mick Stranahan, who appears later in Skinny Dip, and "Chemo", a hit man who once suffered a bizarre facial electrolysis accident- and ends up with a weed whacker to replace the hand eaten by Mick's "pet" barracuda. The whole story is about a case Mick and the police couldn't solve- the disappearance of a college student who had just had a nose job. Doctor Graveline, who performed the operation, thinks Mick is ready to out him as the killer, so he sets out to kill him. And if that wasn't enough, a sleazy tabloid television host named Reynaldo Flemm is trying to get the story on his show. The book begins with the first inept hit man meeting his demise at the hands of Mick- or rather, the head of his stuffed marlin. It's a roller coaster ride from there to the end! There's gruesome ends for some characters- Graveline gets a taste of his own medicine (or in this case, a nose job), and poor Reynaldo goes under the doctor's knife for his story with disastrous results.There's romance, sex, blackmail, greed, biting satire, violence, and crazy characters a-plenty. This novel is pure Hiaasen! I'm reading Tourist Season next.
No comments:
Post a Comment