Stormy Weather - Carl Hiaasen

Stormy Weather is another fun read from Carl Hiaasen. Like Skinny Dip, reviewed on this page one week ago, Stormy Weather is a character and dialog driven romp through south Florida.

One key figure in this book, who shows up as a minor character in Skinny Dip, is someone called Skink. Skink also answers to "The Captain." The Captain is a former high profile Floridian who goes off the radar, and is a little "off." This character reminds me of a friend in the Cincinnati kayaking community. Maybe Hiaasen has met him?

After two good results, I can now say that Hiaasen has joined my list of authors who are safe buys. I'm pretty sure that any novel of his that I pick up will give me a few hours of good fun.

Up next on the Bedside Table are:

• C.S. Forester's Lieutenant Hornblower
  
• Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point
• Nick Hornby's Housekeeping vs. The Dirt
• David Liss' A Conspiracy of Paper
• Bob Dylan's Chronicles Volume One
  

Skinny Dip - Carl Hiassen

My most recent read is Carl Hiaasen's Skinny Dip. I picked up the book the other day on a whim and plowed through it in a day.

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