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1776 - David McCullough »

This was the perfect book to have on the beach. It's been a while since I've read a good crime fiction book like this. Hiassen is Elmore Leonard-lite but I enjoyed this book quite a bit.

It starts off with sleazy, 'biologist'/con-artist Chaz tossing his beautiful wife, Joey, over the railings on their 1st anniversary cruise. Joey survives and spends the book exacting revenge and it's pretty fulfilling. Chaz is a pretty one-dimensionally despicable character. It's fun to hate him but he's so unlikeable that it makes it hard to relate to Joey, the protagonist, who for reasons never made clear enough was actually married to this guy for a year.

At it's heart, this is actually environmentalist fiction as the plot revolves around a crooked land-deal in the Everglades with Chaz at the heart of the scam. Hiassen utilizes this to condemn the over-development of Florida's natural landscape, making this a little more than just a fun beach read.

Posted at August 9, 2005 08:45 PM