Skinny Dip

I love any book written by Carl Hiaasen for the simple fact that he’s not boring, and of course, his writing, though somewhat politically incorrect, makes me laugh. I can forget about everything when reading one of his books.

In this novel, there’s a twist that the bad guy doesn’t think about when he pushes his wife off a cruise ship. The book is seriously hilarious. If you want to disappear into some Floridian madness, you’ll want to read this book.

Carl Hiassen is able to balance humor and suspense in just the right amounts. Since I think of my life as a constant balance of humor and suspense, the attraction was obvious.

So many novelists are advertised as “funny” but succeed in only being vaguely amusing if that. Also, Hiassen has a keen sense of place. Florida. That’s all you need to know, right? Florida. Florida was nuts when he wrote Skinny Dip and it’s nuts squared now. But aren’t we all?

The desire to know the truth is inherent in this world and this book. And a wild ride. Try living in this book for a few days when the husband of the main character attempted to murder her, and she survived with nature and herself supporting her. With a little help from a friend. Jump in. 

I found Carl Hiaasen’s Skinny Dip while visiting my mother-in-law in Florida. The complex where she lived included a clubhouse that was always empty. Wandering into the small library one morning, my eyes gravitated immediately to Skinny Dip. In the very first paragraph, a woman is pushed from the deck of a cruise ship by her scheming husband. As she plunges toward the dark Atlantic, just off the Miami coast, she thinks, “I married an asshole.” Naturally, I was hooked and spent the next two hours reading half the book. I consider it a special piece of luck to… show more.

Joey Perrone was a college swimmer, a fact her husband apparently forgets when he tosses her off the cruise ship so he can claim her fortune. Joey makes her way to shore, where Mick Stanahan, six-time divorced ex-cop, agrees to help her. But Joey doesn’t want her husband Chaz arrested right away. Joey wants revenge, first. She wants to drive Chaz to the brink of insanity and take his bimbo girlfriend along with him. She’s got money, brains, and enough anger to fuel a small revolution, and Mick’s just the guy who can help her do it.

Hiaasen superbly blends the Old South with the uniqueness that is Florida, where swamps and shacks meet millionaires’ ranches and beach-front mansions. When it comes to crime, Florida tops the nation with its own brand of wacky, making Hiaasen’s crazy plots and zany stories believable. Skinny Dip is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read, and I feel the best example of Hiaasen’s work. His books don’t just make me snort, they create a literal blow-out of laughter. The humor is so irreverent and tongue-in-cheek naughty that I picture Hiaasen smirking while writing these comic thrillers. His characters are… show more.