CNN - Review: 'Sick Puppy' - January 11, 2000

(CNN) -- Welcome to Florida, where despoiling the environment ranks second only to debauchery as the chief goal of politics. It is a place of freewheeling excess, the kind of place where all sorts of predators can prowl. Palmer Stoat is high up the political food chain of the Sunshine State. He's a lobbyist by trade, a fixer by vocation, and a self-centered libertine by inclination. Twilly Spree is at the other end of the spectrum. A generous inheritance has allowed him to indulge his single-minded pursuit of preserving what's left of Florida's pristine wilderness through acts of eco-terrorism.

The two collide in the pages of "Sick Puppy," the fast-paced and unabashedly cynical new novel by Carl Hiaasen. The "Miami Herald" columnist packs his story full of twisted characters, outlandish schemes and improbable motivations. Yet he binds them together with such comic energy that the reader is willing to go along for the wild ride.

What brings Stoat and Spree together initially is a relatively minor incident. The incipient tree hugger is outraged to see the fat cat tossing litter out of his speeding SUV. He plots to teach Palmer Stoat a lesson. Spree doesn't consider that Stoat might steadfastly refuse to learn that lesson. So Spree's tactics escalate -- from infesting Stoat's Range Rover with dung beetles, to piling a truckload of garbage into his Mercedes, to vandalizing his prized collection of big game trophies. Still, Stoat doesn't get it. Only when Twilly kidnaps the lobbyist's beloved black Labrador retriever does Stoat finally realize that something is going on. And when Twilly tumbles to Stoat's plan for greasing the political wheels so a developer can bulldoze a small island in the Gulf of Mexico, the stakes rise exponentially.

There is no mistaking the jaundiced view Hiaasen has of the power structure in his home state. The very names of his characters reflect it -- Stoat, the lobbyist, his trophy wife Desirata, the underworld torpedo called Mr. Gash. He puts a self-aggrandizing Toyota salesman in the governor's mansion, a former drug dealer with a Barbie doll fixation at the helm of the island development scheme and an apparently deranged one-eyed former governor on the prowl in the swamps. Then there's the prostitute who reserves her services solely for card-carrying members of the Republican Party. Her commitment causes Stoat to reexamine his own life.

"To meet someone with real political ideals," Hiaasen writes, "was a rarity in Stoat's line of work; as a lobbyist he had long ago concluded there was no difference in how Democrats and Republicans conducted the business of government. The game stayed the same: It was about favors and friends, and who controlled the dough. Party labels were merely a way to keep track of the teams; issues were mostly smoke and vaudeville. Nobody believed in anything except holding on to power, whatever it took. So, at election time, Palmer Stoat always advised his clients to hedge generously by donating large sums to all sides ... Stoat himself was registered independent, but he hadn't stepped inside a voting booth in 14 years. He couldn't take the concept seriously; he knew too much."

That cynicism pervades "Sick Puppy." It infects every character, even the outwardly idealistic Twilly Spree. Hiaasen's characters are not so much immoral as amoral. They calculate their actions based solely on what the outcome means to them. One torches a pair of personal watercraft to avenge a perceived slight to the environment; another stalks an ancient and arthritic rhinoceros in the hope of achieving sexual nirvana. Who's the good guy here?

In the end, it doesn't really matter. While Hiaasen does give a few of the more unsavory characters their comeuppance, he doesn't try to stake out a moral high ground. His goal is deflating pompous poseurs -- of all political stripes. To that end, "Sick Puppy" is entertainingly successful.

L.D. Meagher is a senior writer at CNN Headline News. He has worked in broadcasting for 30 years.

LATEST HEADLINES:

Back to the top