From Library Journal
Hiaasen (Lucky You) has done it again with this wacky, wonderful, and deadly serious novel of dirty politics, big businesses running amuck, and their potential impact on Florida's fragile ecosystem. Twilly Spree, an independently wealthy, psychologically unstable pseudo-ecologist, spends his time on a one-man crusade to preserve Florida's wildlife and natural beauty. When Twilly sees Palmer Stoat toss a Burger King wrapper from a car window, he vows to teach the litterbug a lesson. Twilly hits paydirt when he realizes that Palmer is a legislative lobbyist working for a land developer intent on building a mall, golf course, and condos on one of Florida's few undeveloped offshore islands. In a wild plot to get Palmer's attention, Twilly kidnaps Palmer's Labrador retriever but ends up with his wife as well. Thus begins a zany plot that draws in the governor, select legislators, a Swiss banker, a former drug runner turned legitimate, a couple of Barbie lookalikes, a hired hit man, a former governor-turned-hermit, and the most personable dog to grace the pages of a book since Lassie. Essential.
---Thomas L. Kilpatrick, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
"Round up the usual suspects," is hardly a phrase one could ever imagine using in a review of a Carl Hiaasen novel. After all, Hiaasen's brand of apocalyptic surrealism is nothing if not distinctive. And yet, in his eighth novel, the author's idiosyncratic blending of slapstick nightmare, and moral outrage has begun to sound like shtick. And his loony good guys and bumblingly lethal bad guys have become almost interchangeable. The plot this time follows the same basic pattern as Stormy Weather (1995): a crazed protector of Florida's diminishing natural resources extracts bizarre retribution from those set on despoiling the land. Clinton "Skink" Tyree, the ex-governor turned hermit and avenging angel, led the charge in Stormy Weather and returns here in a supporting role. Taking the point is Twilly Spree, a 26-year-old millionaire who starts the surrealistic ball rolling by dumping a load of garbage in the open BMW convertible of one Palmer Stoat, political fixer and world-class litterbug. Soon, after joining forces with Skink and Stoat's disaffected wife (and rambunctious black lab), Twilly sets out to undermine Stoat's latest project: turning a pristine island into a luxury condo community. Oh, but there is so much more: a rampaging rhino, a psycho killer who plays pirated 911 tapes on his car stereo, a developer with a Barbie-doll fetish--you know, the usual suspects. The sameness of all this takes the trailblazing edge off the novel, but the black humor is still there; Hiaasen may be repeating himself, but he keeps coming up with outrageously bizarre bits (like the vain hit man who wears a padded corset of cured rattlesnake skins to hide his bulging belly). There is plenty to enjoy here, but Hiaasen clearly faces a decision: keep going down the same path, and risk becoming the Rodney Dangerfield of ecoterrorist crime fiction, or use his remarkable inventiveness to strike out in some new direction. Bill Ott
From Kirkus Reviews
Will another unspoiled Florida island be turned into a paradise for golfers and crooked developers and politicians? Hiassen tells all in this hilariously barbed but rambling expos. The richness of the satire is indicated by the fetishes given nearly every participant to the controversy over Shearwater (n Toad) Island. Lobbyist Palmer Stoat lives to make deals, smoke cigars, and hunt the senile denizens of the local Wilderness Veldt Plantation. The pliant target of his latest campaign, Gov. Dick Artemus, still approaches every human relationship as another exercise in selling Toyotas. Hopeful Shearwater developer Robert Clapley, who never got over his adolescent attachment to Barbie dolls, is surgically enhancing a pair of willing young women to resemble twin Barbies. Clapleys soft-spoken enforcer, Mr. Gash, collects recordings of 911 emergency calls. Twilly Spree, the angry young man who gives the novel its title, is a self-appointed nemesis to litterbugs like Palmer Stoat. Its only Palmers long-suffering wife Desirata who escapes getting labeled by her hangup, and thats because, like Palmers black Lab Boodle, whom Twilly kidnaps and renames McGuinn, she functions as a hangup herself for so many others. But though the inventive connections between fetishism and capitalism, lobbying and extortion, anger management and tyranny show Hiaasen the satiristlast glimpsed in the columns collected in Kick Ass (p. 1546)at the top of his game, Hiaasen the novelist relies on too many coincidences, too shaggy a plot, and too many curtain calls for crazy sage Clinton Tyree (Stormy Weather, 1995, etc.), the one-eyed ex-governor/wild man who personifies everything the author only wishes were true of Florida politics. Not top-drawer Hiaasen, then, but its selling points do include much sex, none of it in the missionary position, and a detailed concluding account of the characters later lives, in the manner of Dickens on 'ludes. (First printing of 200,000; Literary Guild alternate selection) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
"Carl Hiaasen once again produces a devilishly funny caper. In Sick Puppy, he shows himself to be a comic writer at the peak of his powers."—Publishers Weekly
From the Publisher
"A sexy, fast-paced romp."
-- Adam Begley, The Financial Times
"Sick Puppy is Hiaasen at his best."
-- Michele Ross, Cleveland Plain Dealer
"From start to finish, Sick Puppy is a howl."
-- Barbara Hoffman, New York Post
"Hiaasen has done it again with this wacky, wonderful novel."
-- Thomas Kilpatrick, Library Journal
"Carl Hiaasen's books are so much fun, it's a wonder they're still legal."
-- Charles Taylor, Newsday
"Hiaasen's usual cast of zany characters shows up en masse in Sick Puppy, a frolicking sendup of ecological subterfuge, Florida's fabled politics and downright human foibles."
-- USA Today
"Hiaasen delivers everything his fans want. He's still funny as hell and mad as hell; his myriad plot twists won't give you a moment's peace, and his characters are kinkier than anything you could order on late night TV."
-- Faith Gay, Miami Herald
"A comic romp that is thoroughly enjoyable....[Hiaasen] is considerably more fun to read than Elmore Leonard, but remains, after a decade of writing novels, in that twilight of cult author who's on the verge of being discovered big time. Discover him."
-- Phil Kloer, Atlanta Journal Constitution
From the Inside Flap
Stoat notices the black pickup truck following him on the highway, he fears his precious Range Rover is about to be carjacked. But Twilly Spree, the man tailing Stoat, has vengeance, not sport-utility vehicles, on his mind. Idealistic, independently wealthy and pathologically short-tempered, Twilly has dedicated himself to saving Florida's wilderness from runaway destruction. He favors unambiguous political statements -- such as torching Jet-Skis or blowing up banks -- that leave his human targets shaken but re-educated.
After watching Stoat blithely dump a trail of fast-food litter out the window, Twilly decides to teach him a lesson. Thus, Stoat's prized Range Rover becomes home to a horde of hungry dung beetles. Which could have been the end to it had Twilly not discovered that Stoat is one of Florida's cockiest and most powerful political fixers, whose latest project is the "malling" of a pristine Gulf Coast island. Now the real Hiaasen-variety fun begins . . .
From the Back Cover
"Carl Hiaasen once again produces a devilishly funny caper. In Sick Puppy, he shows himself to be a comic writer at the peak of his powers."
-- Publisher's Weekly
About the Author
Carl Hiaasen was born and raised in Florida. He is the author of nineteen novels, including Skinny Dip, Sick Puppy, Stormy Weather, Basket Case, and, for young readers, Flush and Hoot. He also writes a regular column for the Miami Herald.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter Two
After three glasses of wine, Desie could no longer pretend to be following her husband's account of the canned rhinoceros hunt. Across the table she appraised Palmer Stoat as if he were a mime. His fingers danced and his mouth moved, but nothing he said reached her ears. She observed him in two dimensions, as if he were an image on a television screen: an animated middle-aged man with a slight paunch, thin blond hair, reddish eyebrows, pale skin, upcurled lips and vermilion-splotched cheeks (from too much sun or too much alcohol). Palmer had a soft neck but a strong chiseled chin, the surgical scars invisible in the low light. His teeth were straight and polished, but his smile had a twist of permanent skepticism. To Desie, her husband's nose had always appeared too small for his face; a little girl's nose, really, although he insisted it was the one he'd been born with. His blue eyes also seemed tiny, though quick and bright with self-confidence. His face was, in the way of prosperous ex-jocks, roundish and pre-jowly and companionable. Desie wouldn't have called Stoat a hunk but he was attractive in that gregarious southern frat-boy manner, and he had overwhelmed her with favors and flattery and constant attention. Later she realized that the inexhaustible energy with which Palmer had pursued their courtship was less a display of ardor than an ingrained relentlessness; it was how he went after anything he wanted. They dated for four weeks and then got married on the island of Tortola. Desie supposed she had been in a fog, and now the fog was beginning to lift. What in the world had she done? She pushed the awful question out of her mind, and when she did she was able to hear Palmer's voice again.
"Some creepo was tailing me," he was saying, "for like a hundred miles."
"Why?"
Her husband snorted. "To rob my lily-white ass, that's why."
"This was a black guy?" Desie asked.
"Or a Cuban. I couldn't see which," Stoat said, "but I tell you what, sweets, I was ready for the sonofabitch. Señor Glock was in my lap, locked and loaded."
"On the turnpike, Palmer?"
"He would have been one stone-dead mother."
"Just like your rhino," Desie said. "By the way, are you getting her stuffed like the others?"
"Mounted," Stoat corrected. "And just the head."
"Lovely. We can hang it over the bed."
"Speaking of which, guess what they're doing with rhinoceros horns."
"Who's they?" Desie asked.
"Asians and such."
Desie knew, but she let Palmer tell the story. He concluded with Durgess's fanciful rumor of two-day erections.
"Can you imagine!" Stoat hooted.
Desie shook her head. "Who'd even want one of those?"
"Maybe you might, someday." He winked.
Desie glanced around for the waiter. Where was dinner? How could it take so long to boil pasta?
Stoat poured himself another glass of wine. "Rhino horns, Holy Christ on a ten-speed. What next, huh?"
"That's why poachers are killing them off," his wife said.
"Yeah?"
"That's why they're almost extinct. God, Palmer, where have you been?"
"Working for a living. So you can sit home, paint your toenails and learn all about endangered species on the Discovery Channel."
Desie said, "Try the New York Times."
"Well, pardon me." Stoat sniffed sarcastically. "I read the newspaper today, oh boy."
This was one of her husband's most annoying habits, dropping the lyrics of old rock songs into everyday conversation. Palmer thought it clever, and perhaps it wouldn't have bothered Desie so much if occasionally he got the words right, but he never did. Though Desie was much younger, she was familiar with the work of Dylan and the Beatles and the Stones, and so on. In college she had worked two summers at a Sam Goody outlet.
To change the subject, she said: "So what did Dick Artemus want?"
"A new bridge." Stoat took a sideways bite from a sourdough roll. "No big deal."
"A bridge to what?"
"Some nowhere bird island over on the Gulf. How about passing the butter?"
Desie said, "Why would the governor want a bridge to nowhere?"
Her husband chuckled, spraying crumbs. "Why does the governor want anything? It's not for me to question, darling. I just take the calls and work my magic."
"A day in the life," said Desie.
"You got it."
Once, as a condition of a probation, Twilly Spree had been ordered to attend a course on "anger management." The class was made up of men and women who had been arrested for outbursts of violence, mostly in domestic situations. There were husbands who'd clobbered their wives, wives who'd clobbered their husbands, and even one grandmother who had clobbered her sixty-two-year-old son for blaspheming during Thanksgiving supper. Others of Twilly's classmates had been in bar fights, gambling frays and bleacher brawls at Miami Dolphins games. Three had shot guns at strangers during traffic altercations and, of those, two had been wounded by return fire. Then there was Twilly.
The instructor of the anger-management course presented himself as a trained psychotherapist. Dr. Boston was his name. On the first day he asked everyone in class to compose a short essay titled "What Makes Me Really, Really Mad." While the students wrote, Dr. Boston went through the stack of manila file folders that had been sent to him by the court. After reading the file of Twilly Spree, Dr. Boston set it aside on a corner of the desk. "Mr. Spree," he said in a level tone. "We're going to take turns sharing our stories. Would you mind going first?"
Twilly stood up and said: "I'm not done with my assignment."
"You may finish it later."
"It's a question of focus, sir. I'm in the middle of a sentence."
Dr. Boston paused. Inadvertently he flicked his eyes to Twilly's folder. "All right, let's compromise. You go ahead and finish the sentence, and then you can address the class."
Twilly sat down and ended the passage with the words ankle-deep in the blood of fools! After a moment's thought, he changed it to ankle-deep in the evanescing blood of fools!
He stuck the pencil behind one ear and rose.
Dr. Boston said: "Done? Good. Now please share your story with the rest of us."
"That'll take some time, the whole story will."
"Mr. Spree, just tell us why you're here."
"I blew up my uncle's bank."
Twilly's classmates straightened and turned in their seats.
"A branch," Twilly added, "not the main office."
Dr. Boston said, "Why do you think you did it?"
"Well, I'd found out some things."
"About your uncle."
"About a loan he'd made. A very large loan to some very rotten people."
"Did you try discussing it with your uncle?" asked Dr. Boston.
"About the loan? Several times. He wasn't particularly interested."
"And that made you angry?"
"No, discouraged." Twilly squinted his eyes and locked his hands around the back of his neck. "Disappointed, frustrated, insulted, ashamed -- "
"But isn't it fair to say you were angry, too? Wouldn't a person need to be pretty angry to blow up a bank building?"
"No. A person would need to be resolved. That I was."
Dr. Boston felt the amused gaze of the other students, who were awaiting his reaction. He said, "I believe what I'm hearing is some denial. What do the rest of you think?"
Twilly cut in: "I'm not denying anything. I purchased the dynamite. I cut the fuses. I take full responsibility."
Another student asked: "Did anybody get kilt?"
"Of course not," Twilly snapped. "I did it on a Sunday, when the bank was closed. That's my point -- if I was really pissed, I would've done it on a Monday morning, and I would've made damn sure my uncle was inside at the time."
Several other probationers nodded in agreement. Dr. Boston said: "Mr. Spree, a person can be very mad without pitching a fit or flying off the handle. Anger is one of those complicated emotions that can be close to the surface or buried deeply, so deeply we often don't recognize it for what it is. What I'm suggesting is that at some subconscious level you must've been extremely angry with your uncle, and probably for reasons that had nothing to do with his banking practices."
Twilly frowned. "You're saying that's not enough?"
"I'm saying -- "
"Loaning fourteen million dollars to a rock-mining company that's digging craters in the Amazon River basin. What more did I need?"
Dr. Boston said, "It sounds like you might've had a difficult relationship with your uncle."
"I barely know the man. He lives in Chicago. That's where the bank is."
"How about when you were a boy?"
"Once he took me to a football game."
"Ah. Did something happen that day?"
"Yeah," said Twilly. "One team scored more points than the other team, and then we went home."
N...
Skink, a former Florida governor now waging war on developers, moves into the spotlight and takes on a protégé in Carl Hiaasen's latest comic thriller. This abridgment captures the bizarre flavor of Hiaasen's writing, preserving its eccentricities of plot and humor. Reader Ed Asner emphasizes Hiaasen's sardonic touches. Oddly, his range of voices seems better developed for minor characters, such as the operators of an illegal wildlife hunt. The three main characters-Skink; Twilly Spree, the protégé; and Palmer Stoat, the lobbyist caught in the eco-terrorists' cross hairs-are given almost the same voice. Despite this limitation, Hiaasen's fans will undoubtedly enjoy this reading of his latest volume. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
