Book Review Bad Monkey

Author Carl Hiaasen has come up with a novel concept for his books; a well worked out crime thriller overlaid with hilarious comedic moments. The combination works, the reader is at once hooked on the serious drama and chuckling at the situations of some of those involved find themselves in. It takes a skilful writer to carry this off, and Hiaasen does.

The story is set in Florida and  the Caribbean islands and features a former detective who for a bad discretion has been demoted to restaurant inspector. The story opens with a tourist on a chartered fishing launch hooking a human arm. To go further would be to spoil the story for future readers, suffice to say there is murder, kidnapping and the usual page turning moments. 

Entwined in the very serious murder investigation we have parallel, and sometimes intersecting, sub stories. A very shonky property developer, a Sheriff who only wants a  quite life, a pair of inept minor crooks, a voodoo woman, a pilot with a pontoon equipped plane who specialises in illegal flights between the Caribbean and the mainland – and a monkey. 

The now reluctant restaurant inspector senses that something in the severed arm discovery doesn’t add up  and determined to get his police badge back decides to make is own unofficial investigation. The search eventually tales him to the Bahamas, with deadly consequences.

There are numerous comings and goings through the tale, the reader has to keep up with many people and is certainly not likely to drift off to sleep while reading.

Carl offers something completely different in the lighter reading genre which I have really enjoyed. I came across it while scanning the library’s collection and am pleased to see that the library has several more of Carl’s books. I will certainly be reading another when I have an urge for something in the purely entertaining line.

Mike Beckett