Skinny Dip is character and dialog driven fiction. The plot is original and well constructed, but it's the characters that make you want to keep reading. There's a chronically inept biologist, his remarkably resilient wife, a morally bankrupt Florida agri-mogul, and his dim-witted minion. Hiaasen weaves sparse narrative with crisp dialog to keep the story moving along.
This is not life changing, morally uplifting fiction we're talking about here. The book is simply fun, easy reading. I found myself biting my lip to avoid waking my wife with laughter. Fans of Elmore Leonard will recognize and appreciate the style of entertaining, well written crime fiction. I'm not ready to put Hiassen up on the throne with Leonard, but he's close. I liked Skinny Dip well enough to go back to the store for two more of Hiaasen's novels today. I'll let you know how they stack up.
Books currently on the bedside table are:
- Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age
- Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point
- Nick Hornby's Housekeeping vs. The Dirt
- David Liss' A Conspiracy of Paper
- Hiaasen's Sick Puppy
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