Pun Salad

Well, I learned a new word, one I've never encountered before, almost certainly will never encounter again: "otolaryngologist".

I will use it in a sentence: "If you require an emergency skin graft from an otolaryngologist, do not make pre-surgical anti-Semitic slurs that might apply to their spouse."

Anyway: this is the standard Carl Hiaasen adult novel. A protagonist with anger management issues, but the good news is the people he's angry with are cartoonish stock characters from the Hillary Clinton Shopping Basket of Deplorables: dirty politicians, corrupt regulators, neo-Nazis, Florida developers, etc. There are, additionally, drive-by slams at Fox News, Ginni Thomas, and (of course) Donald J. Trump. Our hero is aided by a beautiful wisecracking receptionist, and a hooker with a heart of … well, probably not gold, but it's eventually in the right place.

There is a lot going on, but the main plot thread involves a group of those neo-Nazis getting utilized by one of those corrupt pols to suppress voter turnout at an assisted living facility on election day, thereby assuring the re-election of the incumbent GOP Congresscritter/substance abuser/white supremacist/pervert.

So, bottom line: if you've read more than three Hiaasen novels, you've pretty much read this one too. And (worse), the hardcover edition of this book clocks in at (according to Amazon) 384 pages. That's just too long, and it feels very padded.

No disrespect to Hiaasen, he's got his publishing contract, he fulfills it with clever abandon, or at least he's got a pretty good AI trained on his oeuvre to do it for him. I admit, he got a few chuckles out of me, just as he did with Tourist Season, decades back.

The reviews I've seen seem to welcome the book as kind of psychotherapy. I assume the same motivations behind the folks who are still watching The Daily Show