Rating: 
Summary: What the hell happened to Dave?!
Review: Tricky Business starts off with a written warning: "THIS BOOK CONTAINS SOME BAD WORDS," and says to not read the book if you don't like four-letter words. But most people that read this book are his loyal fans, and I am among them. I really enjoy Dave Barry's humor. I am not against swearing if it's necessary in context, but this book goes so far over the top with profanity that it becomes tedious to read. It's just "F**K," "F**K," and more "F**K." This is highly uncharacteristic of Dave, as he hardly ever swears, even in his nonfiction books, and this book is a terrible first impression for a newcomer to his humor. If I had never heard of Dave Barry, I would have put this book down 2/3 of the way through (if I made it to there) and dismissed him as a sorry loser who needs to get a grip on life. He is not. He's a talented humorist. So, maybe you're thinking, "He's Dave Barry! He must have written SOMETHING funny in this book!" The answer is yes, though barely. When he talks about the band members or the two retirees, there is a charm, however brief. When he talks about the scummy drug dealers, he goes so far off the deep end that it almost crosses the line into self parody. Take for instance, where Tark gratuitously cuts off Juan's nose and his ......, delivered in such a mean-spirited, graphic manner that only a sick cretin (much like modern-day George Carlin) could have written it. Also, take for instance the part where Tark sticks tape over Frank's mouth, which is bleeding, so Frank is forced to swallow his own blood and choke on his own vomit. Take for instance, the totally unnecessary sex between Lou Tarant and his secretary Dee Dee while he finds out a crucial piece of information over the phone. Every single thing mentioned above is without a trace of humor. They are also clearly not intended for laughs, and they are totally out of place. They belong in a disturbing crime novel, not a Dave Barry book. As I said above, I'm not against those sort of things, as long as they are justified. Here they are not. Tricky Business is a bloated, self-indulgent 300+ page book, a sadly disappointing thing from any so called humorist, much less Dave, who is a very funny person. If his subsequent novels are like this, I'll probably hesitate at the thought to read anything by him again.
Rating:
Summary: The joke is on the reader...
Review: What is the sound of no one laughing? Answer: the same sound as one would hear in a room wherein someone is reading Dave Barry's sophomore novel, "Tricky Business." Good grief! Does it get more soporific than this? After a long time avoiding fiction, soaking up facts in the nonfiction world, I returned with a vengeance hoping to bolster my own writing skills. What I have found is one pretentious, pointless, or boring read after another. Surely Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist Dave Barry can save the day! But, alas, "Tricky Business" has as much wit as a coma victim. Most thirteen year old boys have a more fully realized arsenal of funny scenarios rattling around in their bags of scatology, as well. Writing about his favorite topic, Miami sleaze, Barry introduces us to a wasted bar band, a couple wrinkled elders acting half their age, the Mob (of course) and all their lackeys, a down-on-his-luck ship captain, a frustrated single mom working beneath her abilities as a cocktail waitress, and a surly conch, all converging on the aptly named casino boat, The Extravaganza of the Seas, during a tropical storm. There's a plot to doublecross the mobsters and, well...actually that's the only real plot. Can't really make much of any subplots worth mentioning. Sadly, the parts - which do have potential - never add up to anything. Three hundred and change pages later and you've got one giant ho-hum... and the aforementioned lack of mirth doesn't help, either. What really disturbs me about this book is its mean spirit. Barry has a warning at the beginning about the language, since many of his readers objected to the obscenities in his previous novel, "Big Trouble." I forget which comedian told the story that his mother warned him never to work "blue", and I can tell you that Barry should have heeded that guy's mom. The profanity, adult situations, and grisly nature of "Tricky Business" just make it wearying. A humorist should know that the F-word just isn't all that funny anymore. Someone like P. J. O'Rourke can write a piece and make it totally ribald, but his choice of funnier (and cleaner) words for profanities takes his work to higher level. Barry, so clever in his column, should know this, but he abandons wisdom in favor of lowbrow mucking about. Boo. Hopefully Barry will rebound with his next novel, but he's got to work his fiction-writing chops up a notch. The writing here is just poor: bad plotting, underdeveloped characters, and a pacing that needs a transfusion of adrenaline. When your novel isn't funny, lacks suspense, and doesn't really say anything about the human condition, it's time to get the number of a good book doctor.
Rating: 
Summary: A very fun book
Review: The Extravaganza of the Seas is the setting for this novel. It's a floating casino that goes 3 miles off the Florida coast every night. But this ship is more than a casino, it's also used to smuggle drugs into the country. A prominent gangster quickly approaches Bobby Kemp, a small-time crook who owns the Happy Conch restaurant chain, soon after his purchase of the Extravaganza. Lou Tarant makes it very clear who is boss to Bobby who then vows to get back at him some day. One night, tropical storm Hector is blowing heavy winds along the coast, but Bobby insists that the Extravaganza still go out that evening. We then meet a very colourful cast of characters among which are the onboard gangsters; the ship's not-so-good band; Phil and Arnie, two octogenarians who "escape" their retirement home regularly for an evening of fun and gambling; and a cocktail waitress looking to earn a decent living for her daughter. On shore, the NewsPlex Nine reporters are out and are trying to keep the public informed about this storm, but trouble seems to follow these reporters wherever they go. The story is funny and you can't help but love the bumbling cast of characters. Having read this book, I now really want to read Dave Barry's first novel, Big Trouble.
Rating: 
Summary: fabulous
Review: dave barry is a genious... this was an intensely hilarious book. and the only real problem is that in the beginning seems a bit too much like big trouble.
Rating:
Summary: This book is awful. I am not making this up.
Review: Fans of Miami Herald humorist Dave Barry know his trademarks well. He has a rapier wit, especially when it comes to mutant constipated worms and the social infrastructure of exploding toilets. He has a way of saying what the layperson is thinking with hilarious results. And as he showed us in his fictional debut with "Big Trouble," he can weave a bunch of flat stereotypes into one massive interrelated plot and make us care about their individual fates simultaneously. Not so with "Tricky Business," a waterbound thriller that owes more than a little to the stylings of fellow Floridian Carl Hiaasen. TB takes the same idea that Big Trouble had - that is, to take a dozen initially unrelated characters and have all their stories magically relate by book's end - but executes it miserably. It's horrible to say that Dave Barry has typecast himself into strict comedy, but he has, and the rampant violence, sex, and coarse language that feature prominently on almost every page in the book are neither a true indication nor a good first impression of Barry's real abilities. While I'll spare you from detailed accounts of the various scenes other Amazon.com reviewers have seemingly eagerly piped up about, I will say that they are least representative of the Dave all fans of his column know and love, and that the warning that appears before the story is almost ESRB-ish in that it is a bad indicator of what really lies inside this needlessly vulgar novel. Not only is it nasty beyond reason, it takes forever to get anywhere. The hardback clocks in at 224 pages, and even at 150 pages nothing that is on par with the constant thrill ride of Big Trouble has occurred yet. This lack of action in 150 pages would be fine in a book like the uncut version of "The Stand" (~1150 pages), but if you only had only 74 pages left, wouldn't you start worrying too? Dave Barry may think he's struck a niche with this sort of bombastic character-oriented miscellany, but he's way out of his league. The only characters he knows are bland with archetypes that can only come out of The Big Book O' Cliches. However, Big Trouble was successful because the situation at hand allowed us to care about those characters. These cardboard cutouts he has created are silhouettes, devoid of personality and humor, but possessing a mean-spirited darkness that is enough unlike Barry's renowned wit to be a turnoff. The only ones keeping this book from receiving one less star, as a matter of fact, are the grumpy old men (not Lemmon and Matthau). Unfortunately, their wizened lungs don't have enough fresh breath to resuscitate this casino-centric novel whose trolling motor sputters and dies before it even gets out of shallow waters.
Rating:
Summary: Fun,light, quick read
Review: I couldn't put this book down. I laughed out loud at least five times and finished it in one night. Very enjoyable "light" reading but funny and a good story. Would highly recommend as long as you don't mind a little "reality" with regard to language and a few rock and roll stoners! Great book.
Rating:
Summary: hysterical!
Review: I found Dave Barry's latest novel to be hysterically funny and thoroughly enjoyable! Perfect beach reading!
Rating: 
Summary: Enjoy It For What It Is
Review: If you want to read a fun story that is an easy read and will make you laugh, pick up this book and enjoy yourself. If you are looking for serious literature with important insights on the human condition and the meaning of life, I suggest you look elsewhere. This funny story set on a gambling boat sailing in a hurricane is quite witty and creative. Along the way Barry manages to skewer local news broadcasters, organized crime, backsliding professional musicians, senior citizens, and the primal urge to gamble. The story itself which involves underworld drug dealing and profit skimming along with an action plot isn't all that important. It's merely there to give Barry an opportunity to make funny observations and create memorable characters. The bottom line is that it's funny but I'm not sure I would recommend paying the full hardcover price for it. [...]
Rating:
Summary: Funnest Book Ever
Review: Myself, i am not a big reader but i finsihed this book in about 4 days. It was so funny and had so much going on at one time i could not put it down. I had to stop once in awhile just because i was laughing so hard. If you want a reall good and funny book buy this one
Rating:
Summary: Misfires with gratuitous violence and sex
Review: "Tricky Business" is the story of a rundown cruise ship that makes nightly runs three miles offshore so people can gamble away their money. Of course, being a Dave Barry book, it includes a large assortment of oddball characters, including a pothead guitarist, a single-mom cocktail waitress, a guy in a conch costume, and an entrepreneur who specializes in both newspaper-filled car air bags and badly augmented breasts. As someone who giggled and guffawed his way through Dave Barry's "Big Trouble," I eagerly awaited his second novel, fully expecting the same gonzo writing that made his first book so appealing. But when I sat down to read "Tricky Business," I instead found gangsters killing each other in ever more inventive and bloody ways, a repulsively detailed mass-vomiting scene, and truly gratuitous amounts of sex. And yet the book would have been acceptable even with all this, had it been funny. Instead, the belly laughs that made "Big Trouble" so enjoyable are largely absent in this book, mostly replaced by weak grins and an occasional chuckle. There are a few very comical scenes involving such oddities as flatulence during sex and how the band winds up on this cruise ship to hell; these alone save "Tricky Business" from a one-star rating. But when I pick up a Dave Barry book, I really don't want to read in excruciating detail about how one lowlife amputates various body parts off another lowlife. I can see stuff like that on the evening news for free. Sadly, Dave Barry has badly misfired with "Tricky Business." He should steer clear of murderously unfunny criminals and get back to what he's best at, namely booger jokes.
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