| Carl Hiaasen s characters ride and flail on little verbalhurricanes， and his literary storm shows no signs of dying down. Sick Puppyshares Dave Barry s giddy gift for finding humor in South Florida horrors， and a bit of Elmore Leonard s genius for pitch-perfect dialogue spouted smartly bycriminals who are dumb as stumps. The title of Hiaasen s eighth novel could apply to mostof its characters， but it chiefly refers to an ebullient Labradorretriever named Boodle and the millionaire eco-terrorist Twilly Spree. Let s just say thatTwilly has a singular affliction: poor anger management in the face of environmental irresponsibility. When he spots Boodle s owner， PalmerStoat， tossing litter from a car， Twilly goes to Stoat s home and removes the glass eyeballs from the animals that the bloated lobbyist had shot and mounted on his walls. Boodle gulps down the eyeballs， sustaining no small amount of digestive difficulties.Soon Boodle and Stoat s wife， Desie， are fugitives from Florida snature despoilers (who include the Governor， a "gladhanding maggot，" theamusingly slimy Stoat， the human bulldozer Krimmler， the cocaine-importer-turned-developer Clapley， and the hit man Mr. Gash，who s fond of sex with multiple beach bimbos in iguana-skin sex harnesses tothe tunes of The World s Most Blood Curdling Emergency Calls).Desie， who has a knack for calamitous romance， is smitten with Twilly， buturges him not to kill any litterbugs or pelican molesters: "Jail would not begood for this relationship." What keeps pure farce at bay in a novel thatromps with the abandon of a scent-crazed Labrador is the otherwise charming Twilly s creepy edge of implacable fanaticism. And what redeems the funny/ugly violence from clich+? is its colorful badguys (they re as iridescent as oil slicks)， Hiaasen s excellent wit， and the music ofhis prose. To evoke a drunk asleep on the beach， he adds a pungent detail:"a gleaming stellate dollop of seagull shit decorated his forehead."Hiaasen is not unflawed. His original eco-terrorist character，ex-Florida governor Clinton "Skink" Tyree， seems like an interloper from theearlier books. But Hiaasen s the master of madcap ensembles (which is partlywhy the star-vehicle film of his fine book Strip Tease flopped).And even when you can see a chase scene s denouement coming for a beachfront mile， each paragraph packs descriptive delights to keep you going at breakneck pace.--Tim Appelo |
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