I seem to have inadvertently stumbled into a theme of writers not using their usual writing style. First the Mieville graphic novel, then the Thomson going all Cormac on us… and now this. Carl Hiaasen writing in the present tense.
This is one of his young adult books- you can always tell from the one-word titles. All his novels for the more mature reader (that sounds less dodgy than adult novels) have two-word titles.
Wrecker – aka Valdez Jones VIII- is a troubled teen living in Florida. He calls himself Wrecker because the original Valdez Jones used to dive down to shipwrecks for salvage in the last but one century. His dad is a waster who walked out on the family to try to start a music career. He doesn’t get on with his stepfather for several reasons so he lives with his older sister, an eco-warrior campaigning against large cruise ships being allowed back into the bay. For extra money he cleans iguana droppings from a grave in a nearby cemetery. For relaxation he goes out fishing in his skiff.
It's while he’s out on the skiff that he runs into a motorboat stranded on a sandbank. The occupants are not the type of people you want to get involved with, but this chance meeting is he start of a whole new set of troubles for young Wrecker. He soon finds himself increasingly entangled in the smuggler’s nasty business. Can he find a way to extricate himself with all his limbs and his potential future intact?
Set during the pandemic, and with a very strong pro vaccination stance taken by most of the protagonists, and a sub-plot about the historical lynching of a local man, this book has actually been banned from several school libraries in Florida, and Hiaasen found several of his scheduled publicity stops on his book tour cancelled.
Personally I thought it was a fun romp like all his books and the fact that it's wound up the stupid people is a bonus.
The characters are as well drawn as ever. Wrecker and his family and potential girlfriend are a good set of protagonists. The villains are suitably villainous If the ending isn't entirely convincing for me, that's because it's YA and slightly simplified so I can live with that too.
It's a lightweight read (unless you're the type that gets angry when people point out that Covid is a nasty illness) but I wasn't over-convinced by the writing style.
As previously mentioned it's in present tense. Normally this doesn't bother me, but in this book it doesn't quite work. As with all his books, he tells more than 50% of it in flashback. The flashbacks are in traditional past tense, and when it suddenly switches back to present tense for the current sections of the story, it grates. Not enough to make me stop reading or anything, just enough to pull me out of the story every time it happened. This means it's a less satisfying read than most of his books.
But it's pissed off the people who deserve to be pissed off. That earns it more points in my eyes.
Not available in the UK yet, unless you order it from the States. Well worth seeking out.
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