Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen

One of the more satisfying discoveries for a dedicated crime and mystery reader like myself is the subgenre of humorous hardboiled crime. As paradoxical as it sounds, the combination of strong criminal themes and farce make for some very entertaining books. Elmore Leonard is a master as is Donald Westlake but the most consistently comical and original, in my opinion, is Carl Hiaasen. In SKINNY DIP, Hiaasen has once again presented us with a highly unlikely, yet hugely entertaining story, thrown in an array of unique characters resulting in a very fast-paced and enjoyable book.

When Joey Perrone is thrown overboard while cruising on a luxury liner off the Florida coast, she is too surprised to scream. At the time she was celebrating her second wedding anniversary and the main source of her shock came from the fact that it was her husband, Chaz who did the throwing. The thing that really has her perplexed is that this is the first sign that Chaz was less than happy with their marriage.

Joey is fortunate enough to grab hold of a passing bale of marijuana that happened to be floating by and manages to hold on until she is saved by Mick Shanahan. Shanahan is an ex-cop who has escaped the troubles of civilisation and now minds an island for a rich old Mexican author, giving him the solitude he enjoys. When he picks up Joey and hears her story he is all for calling the police and having Chaz arrested. Joey is not so eager, knowing the uncanny ability her husband has had at avoiding prosecution in the past. Besides, she still doesn’t know why her husband tried to kill her, so she’d like to satisfy her curiosity and maybe get a little payback along the way – and it’s the payback that provides a good deal of the entertainment.

Meanwhile, Chaz is doing his best impersonation of a grieving husband, distraught by the prospect of his wife falling overboard and either drowning or being eaten by a shark. From the very start we understand that Chaz is a disagreeable, self absorbed man, but as the story unfolds it becomes clear that the man is also an incompetent fool and we get to delight in the way his world falls apart thanks to his foolishness.

While he thinks he has committed the perfect murder, Detective Karl Rolvaag is more than a little suspicious and investigates strenuously, or at least, he does until Chaz’s boss, a wealthy and therefore influential man, pressures the police department to show a little less enthusiasm. Of course, this doesn’t sit well with Rolvaag at all and his efforts redouble in response.

Due to Chaz’s incompetence, his boss assigns a bodyguard to watch over him, introducing us to my favourite character of the book, Tool. Tool is a hulking behemoth of a man simply covered from tip to toe in hair. He has a dependency on painkillers and a hobby of collecting roadside accident markers. It turns out he is wonderfully insightful – in a hairy, hulking behemothy sort of way – and turns out to have a touchingly soft side. Sure he’s a drug dependent killer, but he is also stole every scene he was in.

This is a wildly amusing story with multiple storylines that careen toward each other resulting in a tremendous crescendo. Joey and Mick play out their revenge plot, Rolvaag plays his likable, competent detective role while Chaz doggedly digs himself deeply into trouble without ever being aware of how out of control his life has become.

Carl Hiaasen consistently produces highly amusing stories set in Florida and this is another fine example. His characters range from mildly offbeat (his police detective Karl Rolvaag is an excellent example) to outrageously out of control (and here I’m talking about Tool). Slipped in among the light tone and humorous attitude of the story, Hiaasen stealthily inserts his environmental messages. Although they are added with a derisive tone to them, they are obviously heartfelt comments about the way parts of Florida are being decimated through overdevelopment or just plain irresponsible human habitation. The clever thing about Hiaasen’s environmental comment is that he doesn’t take it so far as to feel as though he is preaching to us.