Skinny dip

by Carl Hiaasen

Hardcover, 2004

Status

Available

Publication

New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.

Description

Fiction. Literature. Mystery. Humor (Fiction.) HTML:Chaz Perrone might be the only marine scientist in the world who doesn’t know which way the Gulf Stream runs. He might also be the only one who went into biology just to make a killing, and now he’s found a way–doctoring water samples so that a ruthless agribusiness tycoon can continue illegally dumping fertilizer into the endangered Everglades. When Chaz suspects that his wife, Joey, has figured out his scam, he pushes her overboard from a cruise liner into the night-dark Atlantic. Unfortunately for Chaz, his wife doesn’t die in the fall. Clinging blindly to a bale of Jamaican pot, Joey Perrone is plucked from the ocean by former cop and current loner Mick Stranahan. Instead of rushing to the police and reporting her husband’s crime, Joey decides to stay dead and (with Mick’s help) screw with Chaz until he screws himself. As Joey haunts and taunts her homicidal husband, as Chaz’s cold-blooded cohorts in pollution grow uneasy about his ineptitude and increasingly erratic behavior, as Mick Stranahan discovers that six failed marriages and years of island solitude haven’t killed the reckless romantic in him, we’re taken on a hilarious, full-throttle, pure Hiaasen ride through the warped politics and mayhem of the human environment, and the human heart.… (more)

Media reviews

Booklist
What do you get when you cross a sleazy marine biologist, a corrupt tycoon with a bad comb-over, and a voluptuous wife hell-bent on revenge? Another delirious romp through the swamps of South Florida from irrepressible Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen. Chaz Perrone was sure he'd seen the last of
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his wife when he pushed her over the balcony of the Sun Duchess cruise ship off the coast of Florida. But Joey Perrone, a former championship swimmer, survived the fall and clung to a bale of Jamaican hashish long enough to be rescued by retired cop Mick Stranahan. Joey wants to know why her husband wanted her dead (he feared she was onto his scheme of doctoring Florida Everglades water samples at the behest of ruthless agribusiness tycoon Red Hammernut). Then, with Stranahan's help, she wants to drive him crazy.
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User reviews

LibraryThing member smik
Chaz and Joey Perrone are celebrating their second wedding anniversary with a luxury cruise on the M.V. Sun Duchess near Florida. Chaz has a pretty dodgy job as a marine scientist. He is the stooge of a business tycoon who is polluting the Everglades by illegally dumping fertiliser. Chaz thinks
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Joey has rumbled that he is submitting doctored water samples to the authorities. Nothing is really further from Joey's mind. She thinks the anniversary cruise is a wonderful, romantic idea, and that's why it comes as a surprise when Chaz grabs her by the ankles and dumps her overboard into the Atlantic in the middle of the night.

Forunately for her Joey was a champion diver and instinct takes over as she plunges towards the ocean. Joey is rescued after almost 24 hours in the water and decides to wreak her own vengeance on Chaz.

SKINNY DIP is a strange mix of crime fiction and light humour. It seems to me written with half an eye on a screen version. Episodic chapters are populated by larger than life characters, with sometimes humorous overtones. And yet the content is serious enough. Chaz, as far as he is concerned, has murdered his wife, and later on goes on to demonstrate his ineptitude by trying to murder two other people. Chaz has one main focus in life: sex. His attempts to prove his virility and to increase his vigor through little blue pills are increasingly unsuccessful. Most of the action takes place against the backdrop of the pollution of the Everglades. Joey's brother flies in from New Zealand, getting to Florida in what seems to me to be remarkably quick time, having been alerted by Joey to her attempted murder. He holds a memorial service for Joey designed to make Chaz even more unhinged.

There were two characters who stick in the mind.
Karl Rolvaag, the cop whose investigation it becomes, is convinced that Chaz is the key to Joey's disappearance. All Karl wants to do get away from Florida and go back up north. He keeps two pet pythons who are missing for much of the book, presumably on the loose in the condominium where he lives in disharmony with other residents whose small pets go missing.
The pick of the bunch is Tool, an intellectually challenged giant who is engaged by Chaz's employer as a minder. He is addicted to morphine and raids hospitals for the aged to acquire morphine patches. On one such excursion he has a life changing experience when he meets and falls for Maureen, an eighty year old waiting to die.

So does the mix work? Well yes, it does in a way. There were bits that made me smile, but for me the action could have moved just a bit faster. But then I read for mystery and crime rather than for humour. SKINNY DIP may tickle your fancy just a bit more than it did mine.
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LibraryThing member snat
Joey Perrone is pissed--and she has every right to be. On their second wedding anniversary, her husband, Chaz, surprises her by booking a romantic Carnival-style cruise. He surprises her again by getting her drunk, throwing her overboard in the middle of the night, and leaving her as shark bait.
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What Chaz doesn't know is that Joey survives by clinging to a wayward bale of Jamaican weed. She's found, exhausted and a little worse for wear, by Mick Stranahan, a recluse who lives on a private island and shuns the mainland after being forced into early retirement from the police force after killing a politically well-connected criminal. If Fate dealt Joey a cruel blow that night on the cruise ship, it's certainly making up for it by creating the perfect situation in which to exact revenge on her philandering and murderous husband. What follows is a bizarre, tangled, and amusing revenge scheme that reveals just what a lowlife Chaz Perrone really is.

Carl Hiaasen books are quick, funny reads with a soul. Skinny Dip is full of quirky characters (such as Tool, the bodyguard with a bullet lodged in the crack of his ass and a penchant for collecting roadside crosses; Red Hammernut, the Yosemite Sam like billionaire making big profit off of thwarting EPA rules; Ricca, Chaz's mistress who has, shall we say, some peculiar artistic tendencies when it comes to personal grooming), implausible plot lines, and witty dialogue. However, for all of the absurdity, there is an underlying environmental message about the Everglades and how big money and political influence can circumvent the very agencies who are trying to do right by our planet. The message is never preachy; Hiaasen simply uses the characters and the plot to point out how corporate corruption is going on beneath our very noses and how industrial farming's mismanagement of natural resources is making itself felt in our water supply, our land, and in the animals who inhabit the very ecosystems we're destroying. However, if you're not looking for an environmental message, that's cool--still consider giving Hiaasen a try. There are plenty of zany capers, madcap adventures, and fun to be had.
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LibraryThing member mhgatti
A few years ago I latched on to Carl Hiaasen and read four or five of his novels in a row before finally growing tired of the sameness of them all. He's one of the funniest writers around, but after a while it was hard to tell one book from the other.

* South Florida setting? Check.
* Sexy, but
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good-hearted, damsel in distress? Check.
* Evil scum bent on ruining South Florida for his own financial gain? Check.
* Reluctant hero with an extremely unorthodox way of doing things? Check.
* Lurch-like bizarro character who deep, deep, deep, deep down really has a heart-of-gold? Check.

In his latest novel, Skinny Dip, Hiaasen wraps all those elements around the story of an on-the-take biologist who throws his pro-environment wife off a cruise ship because he suspects her of knowing about his fudging of phosphate numbers in the Everglades. Except, unbeknownst to him, the wife (a former star swimmer) survives and, as luck would have it, washes up on the secluded ramshackle island of a detective who was kicked off the force for not doing things by-the-book. Since they're pretty sure they can't prove to a jury that her smooth-talking husband tried to kill her, they decide to make his life a living hell by tormenting him until he either cracks up or ends up face down in his scummy over-polluted swamp.

So, yes, it was somewhat predictable. But it was also extremely funny and a very quick read, and after finishing a dry Ben Franklin bio and a downer of an Anne Tyler novel, I needed something light that would provide a few laughs. Hiaasen moves you so quickly through the book and throws in so many funny lines that you don't care that you know all along where the story is taking you, you're just happy to be along for the ride.
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LibraryThing member Katie_H
Recommended by my co-worker, Marianna G., this sexy "murder" mystery is hilarious and over the top. Set in South Florida, it is a quirky tale of Joey, the nearly murdered wife of the selfish villain and horn-dog "Chaz." Amazingly, after her creepy, cold-hearted husband chucked her off a cruise
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ship, she makes it to shore by catching a ride on a bobbing bale of pot. With the help of her new friend and lover, Mick, the payback begins! The story is a little predictable, and not all that believable, but the entertainment factor is sky high, and the characters are wonderfully eccentric. This would be the perfect choice for vacationing or traveling - it's a light, easy, fun read, and it drips with dark humor.
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LibraryThing member bsquaredinoz
The book opens with Joey Perrone being thrown head first off a cruise liner into the Atlantic Ocean by her husband Chaz for reasons that aren't immediately clear. Unfortunately for Chaz Joey survives the fall and her stint in the sea. Rather than inform the authorities Joey, her rescuer and an
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assortment of friends and family have loads of fun extracting revenge by playing with Chaz' mind and generally making him regret being alive.

I found this book by a circuitous route while searching for something a little lighter than normal that my face to face book group hadn't read before. I tried half a dozen books that I was assured are humours and found, not surprisingly, that it's not only beauty that 'tis in the eye of the beholder.

I wouldn't describe the book as laugh out loud funny but it did have me smiling a most of the time. I can't think of another book to compare it to but it reminded me of one of my favourite movies, Fargo. It's the same kind of satire and has the same delicious inevitability in the unfolding downfall of the loser husband. The people who populate the book, good and bad alike, are larger than life and full of eccentricities but are credible within the context of the story. Most of them are also very, very likeable. Even the guy who collects roadside death markers.

Even though I'm something of an ageing hippy I found the environmental overtones a bit obvious but they're a minor feature of the book so not too much of a problem. Despite what it says on the book jacket I don't know that it qualifies as crime fiction (there's not much of a puzzle after all) but it's a sharply written romp of a yarn in the best sense of the word and offers that totally satisfying feeling that comes from a bad guy getting what's coming to him.
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LibraryThing member EeyoreGal
Okay, first off - my initial take of the book, without thinking about it, was that I liked it. It was a quick read, and I found certain parts to be rather funny. And totally thought Chaz was a douche-bag who deserved all the rotten things that happened to him. So, would I recommend it? Sure, why
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not - especially when you want a light, quick read that doesn't require much though. However, after a while, some parts of the book started bothering me and I realized I didn't really like the portrayal of some of the characters. The women in the book were all overly sexualized & the men were womanizers. The main character Joey, who seemed capable of handling the revenge on her husband on her own terms, became a victim who required the assistance of men to fully complete her plans of revenge. The one male character that I thought would redeem the story - Corbett Wheeler - pretty much let me down at the end. And the only relationship that wasn't sexualized was that of Tool & Maureen - where it was a relationship similar to that of a mother & son, granted a little unusual. So, overall - the characters didn't sit well with me in the end. But the story was a bad read.
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LibraryThing member sadiekaycarver
This book would be a great book to sit on the beach and read. It's light and funny. It's story picks up right in the first few pages and never lets go til the deeply satisfying end. It's a zany romp through the everglades that has alot of intresting characters. It's part romance, part murder
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adventure. The plot is not too thick, but strong enough to keep you interested. I found this book a quick read and though it was my first time with a Carl Hiaasen book, but won't be my last.
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LibraryThing member ThatsFresh
I picked up this book when it first came out, having no idea who Carl Hiaasen was (I somehow knew “Hoot” though), and decided to buy it based on it’s simple cover and very enticing book summary on the inside flap.
The summary was not to disappoint. I loved reading through this book, delighted
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that it was a mystery (one that I didn’t figure out right away), and intermingled many people’s storylines into each other (I love books that do that). It was sexually charged (something you don’t get in a lot of books…that aren’t chick lit, or overly pornographic) and had a lot to say about people and the lives they lead.
I finished it right away, told everyone I knew to read it, and later realized that it had hit the bestseller charts and was being talking about everywhere. I had no idea that it would be such a hit when I first bought it, but I didn’t know who Hiaasen was either.
When I learned that his next book, “Nature Girl” was going to be hitting the selves, I planned on buying it right away. I got it, and now it’s waiting in my bookshelf to be read (I’m planning on starting it next week).
Some may say it’s fluffy, but in reality, it’s just fun literature.
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LibraryThing member ben_a
This is an ideal airplane or beach read. Funny, diverting, and you will tear through it in a day. (09.03.06)
LibraryThing member justine
Hiasson has a wicked sense of humor, which shows in this murder-mystery/revenge saga/romance set amongst the wealthy and pseudo-wealthy of South Florida, with a little bit of enviornmental intrigue to boot.
LibraryThing member worm
A mystery romance comedy all in one. Hiaasen's style is very much like Elmore Leonard. The main character is pushed off the boat by her husband and survives. She spends the rest of the book seeking her revenge. Its an entertaining but not memorable read.
LibraryThing member Jeyra
A new twist on the female-revenge novel. Hiaasen's characters are never quite right, and they work oh, so well! Contains language and some sexuality.
LibraryThing member Awfki
Not really a mystery as we know whodunnit but it reads like one. An entertaining book, well written though you need be a little fogiving of the plot.
LibraryThing member abbylibrarian
Joey has a problem. Her husband Chaz has just thrown her off the deck of a ship on their anniversary cruise. Joey has no idea why he would want to kill her. But what Chaz doesn't know is that Joey didn't actually die. She was a competitive swimmer and she managed to stay afloat until an older
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hermetic stranger, the unexpectedly sexy Mick Stranahan, comes along and rescues her.

Now Joey must find out why her husband tried to kill her so she can figure out how to exact her revenge.

I liked the book okay. It was funny and irreverent. But I think there was a little too much sex talk for my taste (my, being a children's librarian has turned me into a prude... must remedy that!).
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LibraryThing member hklibrarian
This was a TERRIFIC book that I enjoyed immensely! It was extremely difficult to put down once you started. The characters were bizarre as was the plot line, but that is what kept you interested and kept you reading.
LibraryThing member Sink222
Good overall read, what I consider nice light fluff. Great vacation book, cute story line.
LibraryThing member jmcclain19
I'd heard much about Hiaasen's brand of humor and witty hijinks that I expected good things from this novel. But on three different occasions I couldn't bring myself past the 100 page mark. Most of the "funny" parts seem to be mentioned on the dustjacket leaving little else in the book itself. With
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little humor and zero suspense & mystery, I just can't bring myself to give it a try for the fourth time.
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LibraryThing member boomda181
Chaz Perrone throws his wife, Joey over the side of a cruise ship because he assumed that she had figured out his multi-million dollar scam of fixing phosphorous readings in the Florida Everglades. Joey survives the fall into the ocean and is rescued by a retired cop who helps her seek revenge on
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her conniving husband. In a thriller that explores the slow killing of Everglades Hiaasen introduces a cast of unforgettable characters.

Skinny Dip was my first time reading a novel by Carl Hiaasen, and I must say that it definitely won't be my last. I loved Hiaasen's humour and use of irony through out the book. His characters are so vivid and honest it is hard not to enjoy even the most moral-lacking villain.
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LibraryThing member verbafacio
Fun, farcical, Florida novel. I loved the combination of dark humor and occasional sweet moments (such as between Tool and Maureen).
LibraryThing member Jaylabelle
Fabulous read. Hiaasen's best work. Great laughs, wonderful characters. Just read it!!!
LibraryThing member madamejeanie
This is a story of revenge, and boy, is it ever sweet! LOL Joey and
Corbett Wheeler are the orphaned children of a pair of extremely wealthy
globetrotters, killed in a plane crash when their children were little.
After dealing with the larcenous attitude of their aunt who raised
them (and wanted to get
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her hands on the $26 million trust fund),
Corbett decides to move to New Zealand to raise sheep and steer clear of
most humans. Joey decides to live a modest life and not let many know
about her fortune.

Joey winds up marrying one Dr. Chaz Perrone, a completely mercenary
lecherous villain, but one who convinces her that he loves her and only
her. (You wonder, along with Joey, how such a sensible heroine could
possibly have been that dumb.) It doesn't take her long to figure out
that he's not very trustworthy, but her nature causes her to look for
the good in people and overlook glaring faults for as long as she can.
For their second anniversary, Chaz books a dream cruise through the
Caribbean, a chance for them to "reconnect." He connects with her, all
right. His hands connect with her ankles just before he flips her up
and over the side of the ship in the middle of a rainy night. If she
hadn't been a champion diver in college, the fall itself would have
killed her.

But it doesn't. Nor does she drown or get eaten by sharks in the water.
Parched, exhausted, totally naked and nearly dead, she is plucked from
the water hours later by Mick Stranahan in a skiff. Mick is a former
police investigator, forcibly retired after a couple of questionable
deaths, who is living on a small secluded island, south of the Florida Keys.

What follows is one of the funniest, most rollicking tales I've read in
a loooooonnnnnggggggg time. Joey just can't figure out why her husband
wanted to kill her, but she's determined to find out. Mick goes along
for the ride because life gets rather boring on that island and he's
between women right now, so why not? His police background serves him
well in this escapade. Joey takes her brother, Corbett, and her best
friend, Rose (they are members of a book club! LOL) into her confidence
and enlists them in her intricate and involved web of sweet revenge.

Chaz is delectably hateful. His slimy cohorts in subterfuge and crime
are deliciously written, from the Neandrathal Earl Edward O'Toole (a
huge, stupid hunk of meat with surprisingly clear morals and a bullet
lodged in the crack of his butt) to the corporate swine,
cracker-turned-crooked-millionaire Sam Hammernut, a more plain spoken
character I've seldom come across. Chaz is blissfully unaware that the
wife he flipped of the deck of that ship isn't dead after all, and he
completely rids their home of all traces that Joey ever existed. But he
begins to think he's going nuts when she starts sneaking into their home
and moving things around, leaving her things here and there, setting him
up for the complete "Gas Light" treatment. Watching him slowly
self-destruct was great.

There are some other delightful characters in here, too, like Karl
Volvaag, the police investigator and transplanted Minnesotan with an
affinity for large reptiles; Ricca, the hairdresser who's been fooling
with Chaz behind Joey's back for months; and a variety of lesser
characters who make a lasting impression on you.

The story culminates in one of the most satisfying confrontations I've
read in a long time when Joey finally reveals herself, and the bad guys
all get what's coming to them and the good guys live happily ever after.
I really enjoyed this one and will be looking for others written by
this author. His writing style is one of the most entertaining ones
I've seen in a long time, and the south Florida area is his stomping
grounds, so he knows it quite well, and it shows. This one gets a 5.
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LibraryThing member mairz
This was my frist Hiaasen book and man did I love it! The characters were great and the effort that he put into the research of the areas in Florida is well beyond me. I love this man and I love this book! I think the cover says it all, don't you?
LibraryThing member tiureti
An entertaining, fun read. Not a book I would normally read, but worthwhile since it came to me for free.
LibraryThing member shawnd
I'd hate to say you've read one book by Carl Hiassen you've read them all but I read Skinny Dip after reading Nature Girl (and now on to Sick Puppy). There were so many similarities it was kind of like reading a James Bond book, with the repeated character names changed. There was a care-free,
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outgoing, independent minded heroine, a selfish guy who sleeps around antagonist, set in Florida, adventure, with a police investigator and some Swamp people, etc. All that said, both of the books singly were enjoyable. The characters were so iconic that rather than seeming cliches they were really refreshing. He writes the outgoing almost tom-boy girl with a set of characteristics (like she is either so poor or so rich that she can have a WTF attitude and do whatever she wants without any real thought of the consequences) that makes the reader want to be like the heroine in terms of not taking life too serious and doing what we have a mind to do/how we wish we'd react in real life situations.

Skinny dip is more like a crime drama than his other books so if you like that genre then this should seem really good. Overall, I think this book is fun, attractive, amusing, engaging.
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LibraryThing member BoundTogetherForGood
I liked Hiaasen's books for youths so much that I wanted to read one of is books for adults. (Hoot and Flushed) This book is not of a genre usual for me. This book is about a man who decides to throw his wife off a cruise ship on their second anniversary, to kill her. There is a lot of bad language
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in this book. The story was interesting. The last bit of the book leaves the end a bit open but one of the characters has made the premoniscient statement that everything is going to wrap up nicely and completely.
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