Book Reviews

Sick Puppy

Knopf, 352 pp., $25

Oh, the feeling one gets from reading Carl Hiaasen's Sick Puppy. Somewhere in the pit of the stomach it's like a reverse roller coaster that creeps inexorably down, down, down and then zooms up, forcing air and spittle out of your slack lips. Then it slowly reverses for another descent -- you would hold your breath in fright if you just weren't laughing so hard. You're in the hands of a master.

With Sick Puppy, Hiaasen -- the man who spins satire and action out of the same crazy thread -- is up to his old tricks and singing a familiar refrain. Money-grubbing politicos and sleazebag developers are despoiling Florida's few remaining outposts of nature for the sake of a few (million) quick bucks. The eco-terrorists, on the other hand, might have God and gators on their side, but their hearts of gold can't hide the fact that they just want to open a can of whup-ass on the overstuffed fat cats. They are downright antisocial.

Hiaasen introduces us to Twilly Spree, a younger, marginally more people-friendly version of swamp-dweller Skink (who, if you've entered in the middle of our feature presentation, is former Florida governor Clinton Tyree, who fled from politics and developer-tainted money to return to nature and live off fire-roasted roadkill). Twilly is financially secure but emotionally unstable and spends a good deal of his time (too much by any rational accounting) following litterers in his car and punishing them with varying degrees of severity. A repeat offender, for example, is rewarded with a truckload of rancid garbage dumped on his BMW.

Twilly's parole officers (from the time he blew up his uncle's bank, and a few other antisocial actions) feel that he's unable to control his anger. And this time he really can't suppress his rage over a particularly offensive real estate project on Florida's remote Toad Island. To derail the development, he kidnaps and holds hostage Boodles (just one of the Sick Puppies to be found in the book) from Palmer Stoat, the lobbyist who brokered the deal. Thus, having made enemies of Florida's most powerful lobbyist, its governor, and a particularly hateful developer, young Twilly is on a run for his life.

The slapstick hide-and-seek-and-bludgeon that follows features the timely return of Skink from his Alligator Alley hideout and the implacably loyal Jim Tile, Skink's former bodyguard from the Florida state troopers. Tilly and Skink bond like the soulmates they are.

In Sick Puppy, Hiaasen's eighth novel, he has ratcheted down the grotesque one-upmanship he played with himself in previous books. (Can he get wackier than the Weedwacker hand?) But he still concocts his own tiny universe of bizarre characters and behaviors. He takes the time to work with the people in his book to give them nuance and color; they're more compelling for the effort.

This is a hugely funny book that doesn't tickle the funny bone -- it rubs it raw and bloody. It's yet another act of disturbingly dark comic propaganda from Hiaasen protesting the ongoing defilement of Florida's remaining natural habitats. He doesn't let the preaching sidetrack the storytelling, but you can still hear the enviro-preacher's cadence cut through the din.

Hiaasen is still the man to beat in his offbeat oeuvre. He remains the benchmark for perversely bent crime novelists. His name is now always invoked in reviews of younger contenders like Dallasite Doug Swanson and Minnesotan Pete Hautman. Sick Puppy gives everything up for the cause: laughs, tears, blood, guts, and money. And, you'll be relieved to note, no animals were harmed in the making of this novel.