false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166536000m/13066.jpg 13066 17 When Palmer Stoat notices the black pickup truck following him on the highway, he fears his precious Range Rover is about to be carjacked. But Twilly Spree, the man tailing Stoat, has vengeance,and is dedicated to saving Fl. wilderness Carl Hiaasen's characters ride and flail on little verbal hurricanes, and his literary storm shows no signs of dying down. <I>Sick Puppy</I> shares 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 by criminals who are dumb as stumps. The title of Hiaasen's eighth novel could apply to most of its characters, but it chiefly refers to an ebullient Labrador retriever named Boodle and the millionaire eco-terrorist Twilly Spree. Let's just say that Twilly has a singular affliction: poor anger management in the face of environmental irresponsibility. When he spots Boodle's owner, Palmer Stoat, 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.<p> Soon Boodle and Stoat's wife, Desie, are fugitives from Florida's nature despoilers (who include the Governor, a "gladhanding maggot," the amusingly 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 to the tunes of <I>The World's Most Blood Curdling Emergency Calls</I>). Desie, who has a knack for calamitous romance, is smitten with Twilly, but urges him not to kill any litterbugs or pelican molesters: "Jail would not be good for this relationship." What keeps pure farce at bay in a novel that romps 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 cliché is its colorful bad guys (they're as iridescent as oil slicks), Hiaasen's excellent wit, and the music of his prose. To evoke a drunk asleep on the beach, he adds a pungent detail: "a gleaming stellate dollop of seagull shit decorated his forehead."<p> Hiaasen is not unflawed. His original eco-terrorist character, ex-Florida governor Clinton "Skink" Tyree, seems like an interloper from the earlier books. But Hiaasen's the master of madcap ensembles (which is partly why the star-vehicle film of his fine book <I>Strip Tease</I> 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. <I>--Tim Appelo</I> 2257006 2000 Sick Puppy total:3388|5:700|4:1377|3:1063|2:207|1:41| 3388 12653 4133 339 1 2 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon May 21 10:27:51 -0700 2007 Mon May 21 10:36:15 -0700 2007 more...]]> 1 1 false false Thu Oct 09 19:19:37 -0700 2008 Sat Oct 11 00:56:41 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Mar 25 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 30 09:36:47 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 30 09:42:46 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 1 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Mon Jan 07 00:55:39 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 08 19:30:18 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Sat Sep 29 21:01:57 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 29 21:17:33 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Fri Jun 15 12:46:15 -0700 2007 Fri Jun 15 12:51:07 -0700 2007 more...]]> 1 1 false false Thu Feb 14 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 09 05:42:37 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 15 07:23:07 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Tue Feb 03 13:17:55 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 03 13:17:55 -0800 2009 1
A funny caper revolving around the environmental exploitation in Florida by greedy developers. When Twilly Spree, an environmental terrorist, begins a campaign of sabotage against a grotesque litterbug named...more...]]> 2 0 false false Tue Sep 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 01 14:19:52 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 01 14:40:14 -0700 2009 Sick Puppy is my introduction to Carl Hiaasen, an author that my girlfriend felt would be a good way to get me introduced to Florida. I'll probably read him again, although I found this book to be one of diminishing returns. It starts out as a satisfying read; Twilly Spree is a maladjusted and overg...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Aug 29 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 29 08:10:10 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 29 10:34:52 -0700 2009
Twilly...more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Aug 11 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 11 15:22:27 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 11 15:22:27 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 true false Tue Dec 02 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Nov 27 14:34:04 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 02 19:48:12 -0800 2008 1 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Jul 08 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 03 14:22:05 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 13 06:14:47 -0700 2009
So, The Name of the Rose might be a bit cerebral, but Sick Puppy really feels like an archetypal paperbook best enjoyed while reclining under the sun with sand between your toes. It's an interesting blend of the trashy and the compelling - lots of o...more...]]> 5 1 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Mon Sep 10 11:40:16 -0700 2007 Mon Sep 17 15:45:42 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Jan 25 13:15:58 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 25 13:15:58 -0800 2009 BookCrossing; it was a wild release I found in a used book store. The plot is classic Hiaasen: Twilly Spree is a well-off environmentalist who decides to teach a litterbug a lesson. He ends up kidnapping the litterbug's dog and blackmailing him to keep an island off the...more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jan 06 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 06 17:31:46 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 06 18:02:00 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Mar 18 01:11:30 -0700 2009 Wed Mar 18 01:18:00 -0700 2009
The book has it all: An eccentric millionaire who doesn't like littering...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Oct 01 16:27:49 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 01 16:28:27 -0700 2009
His humor is sati...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu May 28 19:54:25 -0700 2009 Thu May 28 19:57:36 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false true Sat Dec 20 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 20 06:53:39 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 20 07:01:12 -0800 2008 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=13066