Latest news with #CarlHiaasen
Toronto Star
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Toronto Star
New crime novels feature a locked-room mystery, a Scarborough stabbing and a Jan. 6 insurrectionist
Fever Beach Carl Hiaasen Alfred A. Knopf, 384 pages, $39.99 It's a weird time in American politics, which means it's a perfect time for Florida novelist Carl Hiaasen to plumb the satirical depths of corruption and malfeasance in his home state. His last novel, 2020's 'Squeeze Me,' suffered from a subplot that attempted to satirize the once-and-current occupant of the White House, a Falstaffian spray-tanned figure so outrageous as to be almost impervious to satire. For 'Fever Beach,' Hiaasen wisely steers clear of POTUS and his inept administration, preferring instead to focus on wanton corruption at a lower level. 'Fever Beach,' by Carl Hiaasen, Alfred A. Knopf, $34.99. The new novel begins with a meet-cute on an airplane between Twilly Spree and Viva Morales. Twilly is a stock Hiaasen character: an independently wealthy Florida do-gooder who spends his time making life miserable for folks who litter, antagonize the local wildlife or otherwise cause environmental or social havoc. Viva's job is administering the foundation of a couple of rich right-wing octogenarians whose fundraising operates as a money-laundering front to finance the campaign of far-right (and profoundly stupid) congressman Clure Boyette, in hot water with his obstreperous father over a scandal involving an underage prostitute named Galaxy. Add in Viva's landlord — a Jan. 6 insurrectionist named Dale Figgo who heads the Strokers for Freedom (a white nationalist militia whose name is a rebuke to the Proud Boys' insistence on refraining from masturbation) — and his cohort, the violent and reckless Jonas Onus, and you have all the ingredients for a classic Hiaasen caper. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Big Bad Wool: A Sheep Detective Mystery Leonie Swann; translated by Amy Bojang Soho Crime, 384 pages, $38.95 Twenty years ago, German-born author Leonie Swann debuted one of the most delightful detective teams in genre history: a flock of sheep on the trail of the person responsible for killing their shepherd with a spade through the chest. After a two-decade absence, Miss Maple, Othello, Mopple the Whale, and the other woolly sleuths are back on the case, this time on behalf of their new herder, Rebecca, the daughter of the early book's victim. 'Big Bad Wool,' by Leonie Swann, Soho Crime, $38.95. Rebecca, her intrusive Mum, and the sheep are overwintering in the lee of a French chateau where there are rumours of a marauding Garou — a werewolf — that is responsible for mutilating deer in the nearby woods. Among other strange occurrences, Rebecca's red clothing is found torn to pieces and some sheep go missing — and soon enough there's a dead human for the flock, in the uncomfortable company of a group of local goats, to deal with. 'Big Bad Wool' is a charming romp, whose pleasure comes largely from the ironic distance between the sheep's understanding of the world and that of the people who surround them. ('The humans in the stories did plenty of ridiculous things. Spring cleaning, revenge and diets.') Their enthusiasm and excitement results in prose that is a bit too reliant on exclamation points, and some of the more heavy-handed puns (like the sheep's insistence on 'woolpower') seem forced, but this is nevertheless a fun variation on the traditional country cosy. Detective Aunty Uzma Jalaluddin HarperCollins, 336 pages, $25.99 Romance novelist Uzma Jalaluddin takes a turn into mystery with this new book about amateur sleuth Kausar Khan. A widow in her late 50s, Kausar returns to Toronto from North Bay to help her daughter, Sana, who has been accused of stabbing her landlord to death in her Scarborough mall boutique. The police — including Sana's old flame, Ilyas — are convinced Sana is the prime suspect, but Kausar is determined to prove her daughter innocent. 'Detective Aunty,' by Uzma Jalaluddin, HarperCollins, $25.99. Her investigation involves a couple of competing developers, both of whom want to purchase the land on which the mall stands, along with members of the dead man's family and fellow shopkeepers. On the domestic front, Kausar finds herself concerned with Sana's deteriorating marriage to her husband, Hamza, and her teenage granddaughter's sullenness and mysterious nighttime disappearances. Jalaluddin does a good job integrating the various elements of her plot, and the familial relationships are nicely calibrated. The momentum is impeded, however, by a preponderance of clichés ('Playing devil's advocate, Kausar asked …'; 'Kausar's blood ran cold') and a tendency to hold the reader's hand by defining every easily Googleable Urdu word or greeting too programmatically. More attention to the writing on the line level would have helped move this one along. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW The Labyrinth House Murders Yukito Ayatsuji; translated by Ho-Ling Wong Pushkin Vertigo, 272 pages, $24.95 Yukito Ayatsuji's clever postmodern locked-room mystery was first published in Japanese in 2009; it appears for the first time in English translation, which is good news for genre fans. 'The Labyrinth House Murders,' by Yukito Ayatsuji, Pushkin Vertigo, $24.95. Ayatsuji's narrative is framed by Shimada, a mystery aficionado, who is presented with a novelization about murders that took place at the home of famed mystery writer Miyagaki Yotaro, found dead by his own hand soon after the manuscript opens. Miyagaki has left a bizarre challenge for the writers gathered at his Byzantine Labyrinth House: each must write a story featuring a murder, and the victim must be the writer him- or herself. The winning author, as adjudicated by a group of critics also convened at Labyrinth House, will inherit Miyagaki's sizable fortune. As the writers compete for the reward, bodies start falling in real life and Ayatsuji has a grand time playing metafictional games with his readers, challenging them to figure out who the culprit is in the context of a story that owes more than a small debt to Agatha Christie's 'And Then There Were None.' But Ayatsuji does Christie one better; it is only once the afterword, which closes the framed narrative, has unfolded that the reader fully understands how cleverly the author has conceived his multi-layered fictional trap.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Carl Hiaasen's 'Fever Beach' lampoons far-right extremism and Florida politics
Author Carl Hiaasen joins Morning Joe to discuss his new book 'Fever Beach,' which lampoons white supremacy, far-right extremism, dark money, billionaires, and our polarized culture, with Florida as the story's cultural backdrop.
Washington Post
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
From Florida's finest writers, some sunshine for our times
Between them, Dave Barry and Carl Hiaasen are authors or co-authors of more than 70 books,with many millions of copies sold. Their works have been adapted into movies, TV shows and plays. Yet their latest offerings — a memoir by Barry, another novel by Hiaasen — feel especially timely. This matched set of Florida's finest writers comes at our fraught, conflicted times with confidence and clear eyes.
CBS News
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Novelist Carl Hiaasen pokes fun at Florida's unique issues in new book
The pews of Coral Gables Congressional Church weren't filled with worshippers on Wednesday evening, but with devoted readers. They came to see Florida's sharpest satirist, Carl Hiaasen, whose newest novel "Fever Beach" continues his 40-year tradition of poking fun at Florida's unique issues. When asked what makes this city different from anywhere else, Hiaasen didn't hold back. "It's got a glorious history of corruption going back to the late 1930s, 1940s," he explained. "I think it attracts those folks as well as it attracts people for the climate. The climate comes first, and the sort of predatory class of humans comes next. It's a multiplier effect on the weirdness." Hiaasen's books are filled with Florida's wildest stories. His novel "Bad Monkey" recently jumped from page to screen as an Apple TV+ series shot on location in the Florida Keys. "It is always like, 'Oh God, I hope they don't screw it up'," Hiaasen admitted about the adaptation. "I was very pleasantly surprised with 'Bad Monkey' and Vince Vaughn. I thought they did a great job with that character." When asked if there's a bit of himself in Vaughn's character. particularly the "smart-ass part," Hiaasen laughed and agreed, "Oh yeah, definitely." New book inspired by real life incident "Fever Beach" hits close to home. Hiaasen revealed he got the idea after finding antisemitic flyers in his own neighborhood. In classic Hiaasen style, he channeled his outrage into satire. "When I see something as sick as that, I always think of somebody's behind this and wouldn't it be fun to imagine their lives in a novel and, and also they get what they deserve," Hiaasen said. "That's the other thing that's very selfish about writing novels, the bad guys in my case get exactly what they deserve, but it's usually done poetically and very tastefully. It's not just gore." Having evolved from a beat reporter to a celebrated novelist, Hiaasen has built a special relationship with his Florida readers over the decades. Florida fans just get it "There's nothing like a Florida crowd because they get it," Hiaasen said . "You don't have to explain a single joke. You say one word and they start laughing because they know exactly what you're talking about." His fans enthusiastically agree. "He writes about real things with such a sense of humor and irony. It's just real life," Linda Kroner said. "I think it's his ability to capture the nation's shortcomings through his political humor and satire. I just think he's really good at laughing at society, and also he's a local, so he gets it," Raj Tawney said. "Fever Beach" is available wherever books are sold. After completing his 11-city book tour, Hiaasen plans to return to Florida, where he'll get back on the water and return to his beloved fly fishing.
New York Times
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Dark Money, White Power and Colorful Weirdos in Carl Hiaasen's Latest
The greater Miami area runs roughly 120 overdeveloped miles from Jupiter down to Homestead, but spans less than 30 at its widest point. This peninsula within a peninsula can claim its share of contemporary novelists, including Karen Russell, Tananarive Due, Jennine Capó Crucet and, for whatever it's worth, yours truly, but it is perhaps best known for its proud tradition of crime writers: Charles Willeford, John D. MacDonald, Les Standiford, Edna Buchanan, Jeff Lindsay and Carl Hiaasen, whose scabrous, irascible, best-selling capers include 'Strip Tease,' 'Bad Monkey' and 'Razor Girl.' 'Fever Beach,' Hiaasen's latest, is set in the (fictional) coastal hamlet of Tangelo Shores, which as near as I can tell is somewhere on the Space Coast — a few hours north of his usual stomping grounds, which may explain the surprisingly scanty and generic scene-setting by a writer whose Florida bona fides ought to be beyond question. The first character we meet is Dale Figgo, a hapless white nationalist kicked out of the Proud Boys after a viral video shows him smearing dog feces on a statue of James Zachariah George, a Confederate general, during the Jan. 6 insurrection. It was an innocent mistake insofar as he thought he was defacing a statue of Ulysses S. Grant, but just as well: The Boys' strict anti-masturbation policy had always (you might say) rubbed him the wrong way. Figgo, who works for a sex toy distributor, starts his own hate group, the Strokerz for Liberty, boosting product from the company warehouse to give as welcome gifts to new members. These details fairly represent the height of the novel's stakes as well as its brow. It's fitting that a book dedicated to the memory of Jimmy Buffett would feature a cast of colorful weirdos and ne'er-do-wells working together (wittingly or otherwise) in a Floridian farce. Figgo's wingman, Jonas Onus, dyes his beard the colors of the American flag and has a dog named Himmler. Figgo's tenant, Viva Morales, is a Hispanic woman with progressive politics emblematized by her New Yorker subscription. Viva works for Claude and Electra Mink, geriatric alcoholic philanthropists who are bankrolling a corrupt politician named Clure Boyette — an apparent caricature of Matt Gaetz, though somewhat tame by comparison — who is trying to steal an election, pay off an underage prostitute named Galaxy and seduce Viva. I hardly have the space to mention Boyette's father, Figgo's mother, the sensitive hit man, the rest of the Strokerz, the hit-and-run victim or the Russians. Boyette has sold the Minks on a right-wing version of Habitat for Humanity staffed by child construction workers. It's a funny bit, but as with Boyette himself, the satire arrives pre-obsolesced by a reality even stupider and more depraved than the author dared imagine: The Florida Legislature recently considered a bill to legalize child labor to replace the holes in the work force left by waves of deportation. At the end of the day, Boyette doesn't care about getting houses built by and for underprivileged children. He is funneling the Minks' money to the Strokerz, who will serve as his foot soldiers in a voter-intimidation scheme. Unfortunately, the Strokerz have been compromised. Not, as they fear, by the feds — who, under the current administration, are more likely to deputize than arrest them — but by Twilly Spree, a wealthy environmentalist with rage issues who becomes romantically involved with Viva. Heavily plotted but peppily paced, bursting with quips and blazing with anger, 'Fever Beach' is indeed both feverish and beachy: a bottomless margarita served in a 'Mueller, She Wrote' mug. There are a number of humorous set pieces, not least the Strokerz' road trip to Key West, where an attempt to disrupt a drag show ends in well-deserved humiliation. That said, the novel's inclination to demean and degrade all too often smacks of the very same politics of cruelty that it's denouncing. Though framed as antagonists, Spree, whom you might recall as the trust-fund terrorist in Hiaasen's 'Sick Puppy' (2000), and Boyette actually have a lot in common. They're both manipulative egotists who think their unearned fortunes mean the rules of society don't apply to them. I kept expecting this parallel to come to something — maybe a commentary on the spiritually and socially corrosive effects of wealth itself — but in the absence of a character who subscribes to, say, The Nation or n+1, the corollary is never acknowledged, let alone interrogated. Notwithstanding the fact that the first plank of their party platform calls for my murder (for being a Jew or leftist, take your pick), I found myself falling into perverse sympathy with the Strokerz, who are despised as much by their patrons as by their enemies, and portrayed as such oafish losers — indeed, such schlemiels — they fail to register even glancingly as a threat. One running joke is that guys like Figgo and Onus are addicted to the idea of themselves as perpetual victims, and thus must come up with increasingly absurd, bigoted self-deceptions to fuel that fantasy. No argument here. But how hard are we supposed to laugh at this jab when it's thrown for the 10th time — especially given that Hiaasen's brand of 'Daily Show' Calvinism means that the novel really is rigged against its born-damned MAGA bubbas? One never wonders whether they'll get their comeuppance, only what forms it will take and how debasing it will be (respectively: many, very), and so 'Fever Beach' becomes finally a test of the reader's own appetite for sanctimony and schadenfreude. As with the bottomless margarita, you'll have to decide for yourself when enough is enough.
