Sick Puppy [Hardcover]

This book had me thinking how great if the Coen brothers made a movie out of this story. Strong visualisations abound. Anyone who has been to Florida and in particular the coastal-strip developments, will be prompted to think back to what it was like before the bulldozers buried the toads. The characters are very well crafted if a little predictable. A thoroughly enjoyable off the wall eco-romp.

I've read and enjoyed all of Hiaasen's books. 'Sick Puppy' was for me the best of them all and a real return to form for Hiassan. Buy this book if you love to laugh out loud as the scene's are painted out and the imagery builds in your head. Great characters combined with Hiassan's trademark tactic of creating totally believable situations and then just tipping them over the edge into almost riotous farce. If you like Tom Sharpe, you'll love this.

What other author is socially aware, enviromentally keen and uproariously bloody funny? Why, that would be the ubiquitous and omnicognisient fellow Hiaasen who can reflect the sick muggy twilighted world of Florida better than Florida can do so in reality. And I'm a true blue Australian; fancy that, eh? Yes, Hiaasen is quite the showman and is entirely perennial, and after reading my first Hiaasen novel not long before this one--"Native Tongue"--I was undeniably itching to read another Floridean Whackos Chronicle from the penman of the best protagonists found in realistic fiction. "Sick Puppy" is an ineffable menagerie of eccentric and bawdy characters, but it is much better complemented by the strong characterizations, the water-proof tight plotting and the satiric human observations which make you want to lie down before getting vertigo. Oh, and they make you laugh quite a bit as well. In my mind, I believe that it was Hiaasen and Quentin Tarrantino who founded this genre of excellence, and the Brits--Ben Elton, Robert Llewellyn and of course the majestic Guy Ritchie--have been attempting to steal it, and quite successfully so in later years. Yet "Sick Puppy" once again reassures which nation of red and white dappled stars actually secures the ability to use this genre in the best way. It's essentially black humour, and albeit one would not appellate it intrinsically as comedic, it is certain wry, and very, very funny. Twilly Spree is a preferable character to the tight-lipped Joe Winder, and Palmer Stoat--to all intents and purposes--shines as the unruly and unkempt antagonist. Our old companion Skink has once again an elongated (yet comfortably long) cameo, as does the ritualistic trooper, Jim Tile. As with Rob Grant's "Colony" and Terry Pratchett's "The Truth", "Sick Puppy" offers us a brilliantly sick insight into the world of gangsters, this novel doing so with the sadistic yet ultimately appealing, almost charasmatic villian Mr Gash, a.k.a. Furry Porcupine Head. And the irony of Mr Gash's final situation has to be not only the highlight of the novel, but the most hilarious but also--primarily--the tour de force. But of course it doesn't stop there, because we have Robert Clapley and his repulsively bizaare fetishes, the bumblingly moronic current governor Dick Artemis, the sadly ironic squirrel-aphobic Karl Krimmler, the silver spotted gruesome hump of lethargy which is El Jefe the rhinoceros and of course the canine most reminiscent of the Heinz breed who gives the meaning to the title of the novel, plus a score of supporting characters whom we will not spoil for enterprising readers. "Sick Puppy" is the absolute pinaccle of Hiaasen's writing as far as I have experienced, and I personally believe he far outranks the likes of Dave Barry, P.J.O'Rourke, Elmore Leonard, Christopher Brookmyre, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. If you want a satirical outlook on the squalid Floridean life cycle, want something which is amusing and yet highly ingenious, or just something which is ritualistic Carl Hiaasen putting a new spin on various things "Sick Puppy" is the novel for you. Remember however never to get involved in leaving your top off a convertible and parking in two spots or else something highly unusual yet ironically depressing may occur. And be aware men who wear snakeskin vestments and carry weapons; they just might be encouraged to stick a rodent in your mouth.

Nevertheless, superbly unrelenting Carl.