Number 44- Fever Beach- Carl Hiaasen

 

Florida's greatest satirist returns with one of his most polemical novels to date. I can't imagine any Trump supporters reading this and enjoying it.  The depiction of the MAGA crowd is somewhat less than complimentary. 

Twilly Spree, last seen rampaging the everglades with Skink, dishing out justice to those who defile the environment, is back.  This time he meets the beautiful Viva Morales and soon finds himself embroiled in a plot involving corrupt congressman, a white supremacist militia group who would struggle to find three brain cells in their entire membership, a fake charity exploiting children, and a pair of rich zealots funding the whole shebang.

Dale Figgo, leader of the Strokers for liberty, is one of the funniest creations in Hiaasen's entire catalogue. When I saw the name of his white supremacist group, I thought strokers must mean something different in American slang.  But it doesn't.  Figgo was kicked out of the Proud Boys for a feces related incident on January 6 and formed his group as a competitor. 

Hysterically, the Proud Boys genuinely have rules preventing their members from pleasuring their own members. In Figgo's group, his soldiers can play with their privates all they want, he even provides them with sex toys he steals from his day job. 

This book is not what you would call subtle.

What I would call it is brilliantly funny. I'm guessing that the congressman is a very easy to recognise interpretation of a genuine congressman if you know more about US politics than I do, so i am probably missing out on a few jokes, but it doesn't matter. Clure Boyette is one of the most memorable characters in the book.  His utter incompetence is rivalled only by Dale Figgo. 

Hiaasen's targets in this book are very easy to hit, but he scores bullseyes with every shot.  There is a lot of low hanging fruit here that Hiaasen has plucked and served as a gourmet meal. I don't normally find a book entertaining on the basis that it will make a lot of people angry, but this will annoy all the people that deserve to be annoyed. 

And that pleases me immensely.  It's the gravy on top of a veritable feast of top class comedy writing. Basically, if you take this book personally and feel offended by it, you probably are the intended object of the joke. 

This is easily the best thing he's written for a few years. Go out and buy it.