Random Book Review (bring your bug spray)
Skinny Dip opens with our heroine, Joey, falling into the water -- she has just been thrown over the railing of a Florida cruise ship by her selfish, perpetual-frat-boy husband Chaz. Joey not only survives the fall, but the trip to shore, thanks to her skills from the college swim team and, when her strength flags, a handy last-minute flotation device (which is a very funny idea). She washes up onto the island (somewhere near Boca Raton, I guess?) where Mick Stranahan, a retired cop, lives alone.
Mick encourages her to go to the police, but with little proof that she didn't just drunkenly flop into the ocean -- and with no clue as to motive, aside from Chaz's self-servingly amoral nature -- Joey refuses to enlist the help of the authorities. Instead, Mick and Joey hatch a plan to first torment and then blackmail Chaz in the hope of getting answers and justice, by shattering his nerves with break-ins, picture desecrations, and phone calls done in the voices of famous actors.
Meanwhile, Chaz's chance to celebrate and congratulate himself are hampered by his subconsciousness's unusual (and fairly amusing) means of expressing regret, as well as the dogged and oh-so-Midwestern-serious investigation by Detective Karl Rovaag. As we learn more about what prompted Chaz to attempt murder, we are introduced to his job -- collecting water samples in the Florida Everglades, a place that he loathes and fears -- and the rest of the cast of villains. Tool is the massive, hairy, painkiller-addicted muscle who is rather unevenly written (he doesn't know what the word "physician" means, for example, but smoothly and wittily - if not believably - lies to the detective about his hobby). Tool's antics wear thin and push the boundaries of believability, but his character ultimately has a surprising likeability and the most depth of anyone in the book. Red Hammernut rounds out the trio, and while Chaz is flawed and Tool is colorful, Hammernut is a straight-up simple bad guy, performing nasty acts toward nasty ends with neither scruples nor hesitation. He's meant to be hated with the reader's whole heart, and makes a nice counterbalance to the other two.
So, this setup gets you through the first part of the book. If you'd asked me my thoughts at this point, I'd have declared my intentions to push it on everyone I know (it's true; I was already mentally writing the LJ entry). It's different, it's colorful, it's interesting -- what happens to the payoff?
Well ... first let me tip my hat to the best part of the book. Everybody and their aged grandmother on the Snarkives has been gushing about how Carl Hiaasen is the master of dialogue, and that's definitely true. Aside from Seize the Night by Dean Koontz (which I read at least seven years ago) I can't think of another book that nails banter, making it light and funny without being dumb, cloying, or unbelievable. Non-banter conversations -- from threats to booty calls to Tool's sweet subplot -- are equally well-rendered and nicely paced.
Unfortunately, great dialogue can't buoy up a floundering plot with soggy cardboard characters. Nobody expects sweeping personal depth in a beach read, and Mick Stranahan is apparently a carryover from one of Hiaasen's earlier books, so his character may seem perfectly well-rounded to fans. And the supporting cast -- from Chaz's hairstylist and girl-on-the-side to Joey's brother who raises sheep in New Zealand -- is a wacky mix that would do any brain-candy book proud.
But the book ultimately stands on the shoulders of Joey and Chaz and their relationship before and after Joey's "death," and the reader isn't given a lot of reasons to care. Joey is a blandly nice girl who, despite being presented as a tough cookie and a force to be reckoned with, spends an awful lot of the book feeling sorry for herself and bemoaning her inspid marriage. A certain amount of wallowing is to be expected after a murder attempt, but Joey is sniveling right through the final act. Chaz, meanwhile, is too pitiful to be fiercely hated and too egotistical to find sympathy. He's a dumb selfish guy who did dumb selfish things and probably deserves to suffer, but it's unsatisfying when he does. Worse, the main questions that Joey and the reader want to know -- why did these two get married? Why did Chaz want her dead? -- have answers as boring as the characters they concern; misunderstandings, bad judgements, and plain poor sense do not a satisfying mystery resolution make.
And while the plot on Chaz's side spins out into some genuinely funny mishaps and misadventures, the Joey-Mick storyline grows lukewarm about two pages after they hatch the plot. Why? Because nothing goes wrong for them. A blackmail scheme run by an amateur and a hermit is brimming with potential for hilarious mistakes and pitfalls, but everything falls into place in an escalating snoozefest. The one spot of trouble Joey does encounter would have been amusing if Chaz's inner monologue hadn't alerted us to every upcoming joke two pages before they occur.
Skinny Dip ends up being much like the Florida Everglades in which much of the action takes place -- a nice idea, full of promise and beauty; but muggy, boggy, and tiring when you finally arrive. The Everglades and the book both have a lot of potential to offer -- but somebody's going to have to clean them up first.