Stormy Weather

Carl Hiaasen

I remember when the Demi Moore film Strip Tease (based on a Carl Hiaasen novel) came out it received a tremendous panning from the critics. So much so that my expectations were set to zero by the time I got round to seeing it. But half way through the video, I thought, gosh this is actually tremendous fun. Since then I've been wanting to try one of Carl Hiaasen's books and eventually I picked up Stormy Weather.

And just like the Demi Moore film, Stormy Weather turns out to be a highly enjoyable piece of zaniness. It's one of those books where an elaborate cast of characters is introduced individually and only as the plot progresses do we get to see how their separate stories intersect. In other books this slow assembling of the cast can sometimes be tedious. Full marks then to Carl Hiaasen for moving it along so swiftly. Rarely is a character introduced and not fully immersed in the murky plot within 10 or so pages.

And the characters are such an appalling collection of weirdos, low-lifes and losers that the effect is wonderfully comic. Especially since most of them come to a well deserved and pleasingly sticky end. The storm of the title is a devastating hurricane which batters Florida at the start of the novel. The hurricane is over and done with within the first few pages (full marks again) and we get into the serious business of what happens to a community in the aftermath of a destructive storm. There are those who have lost everything. But there are also the new arrivals, builders, roofers, looters, thieves and scammers. If they play their cards right they can clean up. There are even the tourists who pile into Florida just to look at the devastation and maybe record some video.

I checked the Amazon reviews and the negative ones bemoan the lack of plot credibility. But I thought the whole point of Florida was that anything's possible. Hell, I thought that was the whole point of America.

And yes, the novel is hugely, wonderfully implausible. Silly, even. One-eyed ex-governers roam the Everglades snacking on road-kill. Escaped water buffalo, monkeys and lions roam the streets snacking on tourists. A dodgy mobile home salesman is impaled on the central spear of a giant satellite dish. Insurance agents swarm through Florida in the storm's aftermath, at least one of whom is caught most unprofessionally rogering a bogus claimant, red Santa Claus condom in position.

Although not quite as laugh out loud as the best of Tom Sharpe it's very much along the same lines. A romp, a very enjoyable romp.