Pun Salad

Carl Hiaasen's latest adult book; I nabbed the Kindle version when Amazon offered it to me for $9.99. I've been reading him for … hm … must be going on thirty years or so, when I picked up one of his books in the McAllen, TX public library while visiting Mom.

The primary protagonist is Angie Armstrong, once a Florida wildlife ranger. She lost that job (and did a stint of jail time) because, due to some hot-headedness, she once fed a poacher's hand to a convenient alligator. Now she's running her own business, dedicated to removing unwanted wildlife, dead or alive from venues where they are not wanted. Things kick off when she's called to a fancy Palm Beach club, where a very large python is digesting a recent meal.

Complication: Kiki Pew Fitzsimmons, a wealthy and petite older woman has disappeared around the same time. Coincidence? (Spoiler: no.) Kiki was a member in good standing of a group of Palm Springs dowagers called the "Potussies" (short for "POTUS Pussies"): fans of the President of these United States. The man himself shows up soon, accompanied by the First Lady.

I can verify, thanks to Kindle's search function, that the words "Donald", "Trump", and "Melania" don't appear in the book, perhaps for legal reasons. Indeed, the book is set in a slightly-alternate universe: the pandemic is over, and Orange Man is still President.

To put it mildly, Hiaasen despises Trump: addicted to Adderall and room-temperature Dr Pepper, obsessed with his tan and science-fiction hair, casual slinger of bullshit and hatred. Hiaasen is equally rough on Trump supporters. Especially his rich supporters; he takes Hillary's "deplorables", and doubles down: they're all hate-filled boobs, ecology-trashers, drunkards, and cheaters. The First Lady comes off only slightly better: she's carrying on a torrid affair with one of her Secret Service guards. Understandable, because her husband is boinking a stripper he keeps passing off as his "nutritionist".

Well. If you like Trump even slightly, this may not be the book for you. (I don't like him at all, and I found Hiaasen's cartoonish caricature tedious and unfunny.) Shear that off, the book is about 60% shorter, and what's left is standard Hiaasen, which is pretty good. As in previous books, an ex-Governor of Florida has taken to the wilderness, playing pranks against the despoilers of the state. There are lowlifes galore with amusing quirks, and Angie, our likeable intrepid hero, finds a way to navigate herself through all the nonsense.