Skin Tight-2 Cassettes

Rating:
Summary: Can a weed-whacker be funny? You bet!
Review: I am always amused when I see Hiassen's books referred to as 'mysteries' or 'thrillers'. People who want these kinds of books won't really find them in Hiassen's work. What he creates are darkly comic morality plays about excess - specifically that of south Florida. What is wonderful about his books, apart from the zany characters, great dialogue and memorable absurdaties, is that in each one we see the 'forces of evil' suffer the fates they deserve. Maybe good doesn't triumph in real life, but Hiassen gives us the satisfaction of seeing horrible things happen to horrible people.

In Skin Tight, Hiassen gives us his usual cast of interesting and very peculiar players drawn from the mix of modern day Miami. Without giving any of the plot away, I will only say that there are two things about this book that I bet will stay with any reader: the fate that befalls the vain and insufferable TV host in his Geraldolike quest at expose and the character Chemo's choice of a prosthesis - a weed-whacker. These are a couple of the overthetop high points in Skin Tight, one of Hiaseen's grizzliest and funniest tales.

Rating:
Summary: Hiaasen's next victim: the rich and (wannabe) beautiful..
Review: Skin Tight is a classic roller-coaster comic mystery by that Carl "Florida - paradise lost" Hiaasen. His satire has never been so caustic, or so humorous. Some folks might find it all a bit cruel and, if you've read anything else by Hiaasen, a bit repetitive. Yet Skin Tight delivers belly laughs, which has to be a good thing.

As for the (complicated and over-the-top) plot, we have an incredibly crooked and incompetent plastic surgeon suspected of killing a patient and disposing of the body (in a very creative fashion). As the police and other interested parties come down on this surgeon he employs very colorful thugs to eliminate these troublemakers ... yet everything goes wrong. On top of this he has a Hispanic shock-TV host (similarities to Geraldo Rivera are probably intentional) wanting to capture this ... on live television. Everything spins wildly out of control. Yet the vibrant characterizations, the clever one-liners, and cruel attacks on these rich, selfish and vain individuals make Skin Tight very enjoyable. And unlike his other works, the story is not too Florida-centric (although it takes place in Miami) ... and so it should be enjoyable to most everyone who is familiar with American popular culture.

Bottom line: sick, twisted and very funny. Perhaps Hiaasen's best. Strongly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Like Nip/Tuck on FX? This is for you!
Review: Sleazy plastic surgeons- stupid criminals- insanely vacuous socialites- all are at home in the South Florida that belongs to Carl Hiaasen.

I love his dark humor and eccentric casts of characters- Skin Tight stands out as a keeper on my bookshelf and one I come back to reread for the fun of it. The energy, pacing , characters all come to life in vivid detail and the situations folks get into--- well I don't understand why all of Hiaasen's books have not adapted to the big screen. At least Nip/Tuck has the flavor of Skin Tight in a wild cable series.

Rating:
Summary: Plastic surgeons and other assorted oddities
Review: This is an older novel by Carl Hiaason, but it shows very clearly his wit and grasp of the writing trade. His stories are always populated with an unusual assortment of oddball characters, and this one is no exception. We have a venal plactic surgeon, a thinly-disguised Geraldo Rivera knockoff, an overly-tall hitman with a very bad complexion, and other folks just wandering through this tale bringing their own brand of lunacy to the work. This book has some pretty gruesome ways to die, so it's not for the squeamish, but there is an underlying sense of fun about the whole thing, despite the unusual deaths. The dialogue is crisp, the action is fast-paced, and it's a great book to while away a few hours of your time in an enjoyable manner.

Rating:
Summary: Moral indignation expressed through cynical, viscious humor
Review: While I was reading Skin Tight, someone asked me what the book was about. As I tried to describe the basic storyline, I realized that the plot is not only hard to explain but extremely farfetched,bordering on preposterous. However, that's beside the point.

The joy of reading this book comes from the way Hiaasen uses his wicked sense of humor and his vast writing skills to lambast society's corruption and greed. While protagonist Mick Stranahan is fighting mafia hitmen and outsmarting crooked cops, Hiaasen himself is busy skewering inept plastic surgeons and their narcissistic patients, made-for-tv lawyers, on-the-take politicians, corrupt judges, tourists, sleazy journalists, actresses, fashion models . . . and, I almost forgot, tree trimmers.

Hiaasen's collection of colorful characters, fast-paced dialogue and ascerbic wit make Skin Tight an enjoyable read.