Hiaasen pens some of the most bizarrely clever tales and
certainly some very quirky characters. To wit:
Andrew Yancey:
Key West detective who sodomized his girlfriend’s husband with a portable
Hoover (in a crowded shopping mall and all those iPhones) in defense of her
honor. That little show of ‘restraint’ got him transferred to Health Dept doing
inspections, aka, the ‘roach patrol’. Loses 11 lbs as he sees how food is
prepared.
Bonnie Witt: the
girlfriend whose honor needed defending. Alias Plover Chase, an Oklahoma
fugitive wanted for sexual abuse of one of her high school student’s when she
was teaching AP English.
Clifford Witt.
Retired MD, married to Bonnie, but more interested in auto asphyxiation
Cody:
Bonnie/Plover’s boy toy. Took his AP English smarts all the way to ass’t mgr of
a Tulsa Olive Garden.
Dr. Rosa
Campesino: Miami medical examiner with out-of-the-box tastes, like sex on an
autopsy table or during a hurricane.
The Dragon Queen:
Bahaman voodoo queen/man trap. Rides around on a handicap scooter
Neville: Nth
generation local in the Bahamas. Family home on a cove, sold out from under him
to a foreign developer by an absent sister. Doesn’t want the money from the
sale, wants his home back. Hires the
Dragon Lady to voodoo the developer.
Nick Stripling: Con
man, defrauding Medicare through sales of handicap scooters. Made millions, but
the feds are after him. His plan? Fake his death. Has a crooked surgeon
amputate his arm and gets a punk on a fishing boat to ‘hook’ it. Once found and
ID’d, he’d be declared dead. He and his wife would move to the Bahamas and try
to build a hotel from his insurance settlement.
Eve Stripling:
Nick’s wife/co-conspirator.
Egg. Stripling’s security
at the hotel construction site. Huge guy. Latest conquest by the Dragon Lady.
Not a fan of Drigg.
Phinney & Madeline:
Fishing boat punk who ‘hook’s the arm, gets paid, shows the cash all over Key
West. Gets himself killed. Madeline is his girlfriend who works in an erotic
t-shirt shop for a Russian mob runaway.
Evan Shook: Yankee
creep who bought the lot next to Yancy and builds a house that exceeds code.
The subject of numerous Yancy pranks.
Drigg: The bad monkey
of the title. Supposed to have been in the first Pirates movie.
Anyway, the 411 on the plot. Fishing boat pulls in an arm. Police
ID it. Guy is declared dead. Yancey thinks otherwise. Meets a (very) friendly Miami
coroner. Deals with 2 connected (and one attempted) murders. Yancey goes to the Bahamas. Gets
caught in a hurricane. Drigg bites Eggs dick. Shook’s house burns down. Case closed. No problem, mon.
How’s that? Hiaason says most of his characters come from
stories he sees in the local weeklies from around Florida. The foils in his
books are developers, politicians, and tourists and he hits 2 of 3 in this
outing. Terrific piece of escapist fiction. Worth every minute of its 317
pages. Hiaasen lives up to his reputation as a guar-on-teed American treasure. Very funny stuff.
East Coast Don
ge