Skin Tight: A book review (and a note about being home)

I’m home now, arriving here last night and kissing the snowing ground, thankful for a safe trip. I’ve never seen as many accidents as yesterday—when a freezing rain came through western North Carolina. At nearly every bridge there were accidents. One involving a jack-knifed double-truck closed down I-77 for 90 minutes. When it got opened, we had to detour through the countryside around another accident, causing another ½ hour delay. Then, right after getting to Michigan, there was another pile up on the east bound lane of the interstate and cars were backed up. It didn’t bother me as I was heading west, but all a sudden a car in the east lane jerked and jumped up on the concrete barrier separating the lanes. For a moment I thought the car was coming over on my side as his headlights were pointing straight at me, but he didn’t. Somehow he (or she) managed not to roll the vehicle as the car stayed in the eastbound lane. I don’t want the last thing I see on this earth being two headlights flying over a medium! The driver must have fallen asleep and woke up and panicked with a line or stopped cars ahead. Enough of that…

As I let you know earlier, I spent December reading only humorous or feel good books. Here’s my review of my latest Carl Hiassen book, which I listened to on an ipod.

Carl Hiassen, Skin Tight (Putman, 1989). Audio book,

Carl Hiassen must be a nightmare for the South Florida Chamber of Commerce. This is my fourth Hiassen book (and third to which I’ve listened) and from these funny stories, one has to wonder if there is anyone sane in South Florida—including Hiassen. In Skin Tight, Haissen takes on the plastic surgery industry. Four years earlier, a greedy plastic surgeon accidently killed a young coed upon whom he was performing a nose job. Unbeknownst to Mick Stranahan, the surgeon thinks the former cop has incriminating evidence and hires a mob hit man from New Jersey to take him. The mobster ends us dead, impaled by the bill of a stuff marlin (Mick had to use what he had on hand to take out the killer). This begins a wave of killings of bad guys. Most die at the hands of Mick, but the doctor’s new hit man, Chemo, takes out Mick’s ex and a police officer friend of Mick’s gets the doctor’s brother. The doctor does some killing too, but it’s only on the operating table.

Hiassen overdoes the characters and the killings in this book. There’s Chemo, a huge formerly Amish man who’s wanted for murder and who has a horribly scared face (hence, his name). Chemo, without the benefit of worker’s comp, loses a hand in his pursuit of Mick (when Chemo falls in the water outside of Mick’s home, Mick’s pet barracuda decides to strike at his watch, taking off his hand. Chemo becomes an even more refined freak when he adds a weed whacker to the stump at the end of his arm. Then there’s Mick’s ex, who is more than willing to show the hit man (whom she assumed was a bill collector) where Mick lives. When she discovers that Chemo plans to kill Mick and objects (she didn’t want him dead, just hurt), she’s tossed overboard, wrapped in the anchor chain. Then there’s a Geraldo type TV star, whose death is let me just say, surreal. (I don’t recommend this book if you’re considering liposuction.) Then there’s Rudy, the plastic surgeon who, having caused two deaths while supposedly practicing medicine, just wants to retreat to Costa Rica with his Hollywood actress girlfriend. Instead, he experiences a literal case of “eye for an eye justice” (or in this case, nose for a nose). Then there’s Rudy’s brother. He’s in the lawn care business with a tree chipper which does wonders at making bodies disappear. Again, there’s eye for eye justice. Then there’s Rudy’s former nurse, who wants to sell what she knows about the surgeon to the highest bidder. Then there are the crooked cops who also want to see Mick dead, but whose best laid plans are brought to a quick end by Mick’s better laid plans (or tighter strung marlin line). Then there’s Mick’s sorry lawyer brother-in-law, who can’t keep his hands off other women. Then there’s the beautiful young woman who just keeps showing up at Mick’s house, but fails to seduce the former cop because she can’t name all the members of the Beatles. And then there’s Christine, the TV producer, who can’t seem to decide if she loves or hates Mick, but at least she can name the members of the Fab-four. Like I said, there were a lot of characters in this book and after creating this list, I need a nap…

This was one of Hiassen’s earlier books which may be why there are so many characters and even a few strings left untied. His other books seem more tightly constructed. But even in his early books, Hiassen makes murder funny. Having now read four other books by Hiassen, I see some names and themes that are common. Mick later appears in Hiassen’s book, Skinny Dip. Mick’s fish (the barracuda) seems to find a parallel with Shink’s big hog (largemouth bass) in Double Whammy (which was published before Skin Tight). Hiassen seems to often create bad guys which home one can detest while also feeling sorry for. Chemo and the hired thug in Skinny Dip both fall into this category. However, Chemo doesn’t find redemption (unlike the thug in Skinny Dip), just a 17 year prison sentence.

This book is funny and if you can laugh and not get to squeamish, I recommend it.

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An update: In the "Business Insider," a catch all area for weird business news in today's Detroit Free Press (have you ever known a newspaper that was truly free?), there is a story about a Hollywood plastic surgeon who fuels his and his girlfriend's cars on people's fat that he harvests from liposuction... This guy sounds too much like a resurrected Rudy Graveline, including the fact that the surgeon was now in South America after having been sued by patients and sought after by the state of California for breaking a law regarding using other folk's fat as fuel. To quote Dave Barry, "I'm not making this up." (But someone else may have made it up). Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that the newspaper puts their "business insider" column online, or I would have provided a link.