Review of Skinny Dip by Carl Hiassen

Just finished Skinny Dip. My mom got me started on Carl Hiassen books about 10 years ago. They are all about Florida (where I used to live) and typically deal with some wrong being done to nature in Florida by the hyper growth that has been hoisted upon the state by RVs full of “snowbirds”, corrupt politicians, corrupt crackers, and worse. Skinny Dip tackles the issue of the destruction of the Everglades.

Chas, a corrupt incompetent psuedo biologist in the employ of a large farmer who is polluting the swamp with fertilizers, opens the book by killing his wife (throwing her off a cruise ship on their anniversary) out of fear that she will rat him out. Things go bad for Chas from there on in. Hiassen has very colorful bad guys in his books. In this one, the corporate farmer’s hired thug Tool has a bullet stuck in the crack of his ass requiring him to steal fentenal patches off old people in nursing homes. Then of course there is the ex-cop turned hermit on an island who finds the girl and saves the day.

I read most of this book on recent plane trips up and down the coast. Perfect travel summer reading. You also come away with an appreciation of how destructive the “peopleization” of Florida is to the natural resources. I grew up some time in Florida. It is being overrun. In the not too distant future I believe it will reach holding capacity in more ways than one. Hiassen does a great job of weaving in the exact effects that large scale corporate farming has on the swamp and the effect that has on the water supply, people, etc. A nice side benefit of the entertainment.