Basket Case by Carl Hiaasen

Basket Case

Carl Hiaasen

Carl Hiaasen turns his acerbic wit onto the world of journalism and newspaper owners. Jack Tagger is an obituary writer obsessed with three things: his editor Emma, his own mortality and the death of rock star Jimmy Stomarti. Was 'Jimmy Stoma' murdered? Jack determines to find out in a typical Hiassen mix of unlikely characters and bizarre events. For me not as hilarious as earlier Hiaasen novels but funny all the same.

Extract
Shortly after Anne moved out, I falsely promised my mother I would consult a shrink. I lifted the name 'Polson' from a Montana road map, and awarded my fictitious psychiatrist an array of lofty credentials from Geneva, Hamburg and Bellevue. I pretended to attend two private sessions a month, and in bogus updates I assured my mother that the man was brilliant, and that he regarded my lightning progress as phenomenol.
'I would gladly go back to Dr. Polson,' I tell her, 'If he wasn't lying in ICU at Broward General.'
'What?'
'The details are sketchy, but evidently a deranged patient assaulted him with an industrial garlic press. It's very tragic.'

A familiar frostiness creeps into my mother's voice.
'I wish you could hear yourself from where I sit. Surely there's someone you can talk, someone who could help ....'
'There is someone,' I say 'You, Mom. You could tell me what happened to my father.'

Parallels
  • Lucky You by Carl Hiaasen
  • Florida Roadkill by Tim Dorsey
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Violence
Explicit sexual content