Rating: 
Summary: Funnier than a Botched Nose Job
Review: "Skin Tight" is one of Carl Hiaasen's earlier novels. Given the consistent quality of Hiaasen's prolific and wickedly funny skewering of south Florida and its wacky inhabitants, it is difficult to pick a Hiaasen "best", but "Skin Tight" is definitely a contender. In other works, Hiaasen has taken on south Florida institutions from televangelism to trophy bass fishing to stripping. In "Skin Tight", he tackles cosmetic surgery as the unlikely but content-rich target. Fans of this summer's Hiaasen bestseller, "Skinny Dip", will find this introduction to retired state investigator Mick Stranahan a somewhat darker and more grisly prequel. Cast with the author's usual collection of miscreants, sleaze balls, corrupt officials and incompetent crooks, "Skin Tight" ricochets from one bizarre and brutal high jinx to next, each one more depraved and disturbed than the previous. Given the seemingly endless stream of mayhem and murder in this zany tale, superlatives are risky, but certainly the method in which two terminally corrupt Miami detectives are dispatched is especially memorable.
Yet at the core of Hiaasen's carefully crafted chaos and black humor lies an insightful dissection of the shallowness and material corruption of American culture. In a tribute to Hiaasen's skills considerable literary skills, these messages never overshadow the entertainment value, nor require "progressive" political views to be appreciated. Ironic, sarcastic, and biting, "Skin Tight" represents another page-turner from Carl Hiaasen, today's undisputed master of mordancy.
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Summary: Hiaasen makes us laugh at society's moral rot
Review: As usual, Hiaasen's Skin Tight is set in south Florida, a planet of its own making. Swarming with society's weirdos, it features an inept plastic surgeon with ties to the Mafia, inept ripoff artists, inept hit men, and a very ept Mick Stranahan, who open the story with killing an intruder by impaling him with a trophy spearfish. Only Hiaasen could come up with something like that, but know what? I'll bet he culled it from a honest-to-God clipping from some south Florida rag. As he himself says, he couldn't make up all this stuff. Hiaasen's manic, wicked, and satirical sense of humor is in evidence on every page. The central plot is not especially important in his books - it's the process of going along for the ride that keeps us, his devotees, turning page after page after page long after we should have turned out the light and gone to sleep.
Rating: 
Summary: Another Great Book
Review: Carl Hiassen is a wonderfully funny, yet thrilling author. This story leads you through a murder mystery with all kinds of crazy characters and circumstances. You find yourself rooting for Mick Stranahan...a good guy on the search for a killer, but also a killer himself. Make sense? Not really...but the book takes you on another wild Hiassen ride. I definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a very entertaining story.
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Summary: The weird (and funny) gets weirder (and funnier)
Review: Chemo is his name and he may be one of Hiaasen's most disturbingly endearing villans. The fact that he loses his hand is a bit unnerving but then, as it seems only Hiaasen can, is made hilarious by the prosthetic replacement this "flaky" hit-man chooses for himself.Probably the most satisfying part of the novel is that I get to imagine Geraldo Rivera as the model for the vain TV host, Renaldo Flemm. His skin really does get tight. While Pete Hautman's book "Short Money" has a crazed liposuctionist as a main character I don't think he can hold a candle to the wildly wicked plastic surgeon Mr. Hiaasen has dreamed up. Enjoy all the characters, enjoy the laughs, and enjoy all the stares from people who hear you laughing and wonder how come you're having so much fun and they aren't.
Rating:
Summary: Skin tight
Review: Funny Cinderella story. Great Hiassen characters that live fast-paced lives. A quick and fun read.
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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: This book is scary
Review: I did not like this book. Too complex to be fun. Unexpectedly bloody. Could have been sexier just to lighten things up. It is not as smooth as Hiaaen's more recent novels. The book itself is an excess. Too many characters that hang around too long, some should never have been introduced as they served no real purpose and got dropped later, like Al the Cuban detective. And there were too many strange and mysterious deaths of people who were guilty but did not, in my opinion, deserve to be killed like George. Mick may not be a killer, but he was certainly an accessory as things got more and more out of control. I thought that whole story line with the rezoning for the apartment building was unnecessary. Skin Tight would have benefited by focusing more attention on the clinic and its patients and doctors. Oh well. Not great, but still good.
Rating:
Summary: One of a kind
Review: I really loved this story. The characters were well-developed and the plot had me eagerly wanting to read more! (I'm a fan!)
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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.
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Summary: Great Goofy Grifter Gags
Review: South Florida has been a national stereotype of corruption since developers began selling underwater real estate in swamps at premium prices in the 1920s to out-of-state "investors." It's been all downhill in the national psyche since then. Is it any wonder that many question the Presidential election results for their honesty in 2000?
Carl Hiaasen is one of our great comic crime writers, and Skin Tight is one of his best efforts. I missed the book when it first came out, but wanted to know more about Mick Stranahan after reading Skinny Dip (which I also loved).
Mick Stranahan is retired from the state police . . . because he was too good at his job. A crooked judge ended up dead, and the judge's friends didn't like that. The reverberations from that event continue in Skin Tight.
Mick spends his days with a little fishing and a little lazing in the sun in his stilt house built over the water. That idyllic existence is disturbed when someone sends a hit man to take him out. Being totally unprepared, Mick defends himself as best he can (in a way you'll never forget). Soon another hit man is on his way who presents a different challenge. Dead bodies are soon piling up on the beaches in south Florida, and his friends in police work keep asking him what he knows. Actually, he doesn't know very much at first. Gradually, he finds out that he's been set up to take a fall by a crooked witness in an investigation he ran four years earlier into the disappearance of a young woman after her plastic surgery.
Before he's done, Mick finds out who's after him . . . and closes up that old wound. In the process, there's more comic mayhem than you can imagine. You will probably find Chemo to be one of the best comic villains since "Jaws" in the James Bond movies.
If you dislike phonies, you will find several to dislike in the story . . . and each will get their comeuppance in deliciously appropriate ways.
If you enjoy Mick, be sure to read Skinny Dip as well.
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