A brief introduction that you can absolutely skip, the review will follow:
This summer as I criss and crossed my home province and the neighbouring one- dodging wildfires, construction, tourists, pack of elk or goats standing in the middle of the highway playing chicken with Alberta truckers, it was the not-so-sultry-but-very-sarcastic tones of a Carl Hiaasen novel that filled my car. I like Carl Hiaasen, don’t get me wrong, but at the beginning of the summer I had read three of his books in my lifetime… three months later I’ve listened/read 9. And it’s my fault. Before me, my husband had only listened to music while he or his family went on road trips. And then I came along and took him from Vancouver to Edmonton listening to ‘Playing for Pizza’ by John Grisham and my husband is now a great lover of audiobooks while roundtripping. The only issue is that while I enjoy a good cozy mystery, a comedy, a nice supernatural fantasy or something not too heavy… my husband started listening to all of the Witcher books, in order, while driving too and from work. As I don’t commute with him, I can’t just pick up in the middle of the 2nd or 3rd book and know what’s going on. Our compromise was Carl Hiaasen as Squeeze Me was a big hit for him last year. I thought we could branch out, but no… my husband is a completist. As there are over 20 (or 200 IDK) Carl Hiaasen books, even though they aren’t a series and have few connecting characters, my husband still feels it is important for us to listen to ALL OF THEM. So, I shall be reviewing the books I have listened to this summer in my Summer Road Trip book review series.
Bad Monkey was the first of the Carl Hiaasen books I selected for my husband and I to listen to on our long 13 hour road trip to Alberta. I didn’t know where to start with Hiaasen books as there are a lot, there isn’t an order to them, and they don’t really have re-occurring characters unless you count Skink, the former-Governor-of-Florida, who eats roadkill, wears a shower cap, and is an honest to goodness social justice warrior who has shown up in every book I read thus far. Bad Monkey is supposedly being turned into a series on Apple TV with Vince Vaughn and it felt like something we might watch, so why not read the book first.
Taking place in Florida (as all Hiaasen books do) Andrew Yancy is a former Miami police officer now working as a restaurant inspector in a small town in the keys because he makes bad and reckless choices. He starts investigating a case that the Sheriff in Monroe County does not want investigated as he’s afraid it will scare away tourists and he will lose his re-election, but Yancy takes an interest in a case of a severed arm and decides to solve it come hell or high water. Supposedly to prove to the Sheriff of Monroe County that he should get his job back as a detective, but for a supposedly good detective, he refuses to listen to anyone around him giving him advice on what actually do to get back into the good graces of the Sheriff.
Regardless, the book is hilarious, the characters funny and fascinating, and the case itself left me mad at myself for not connecting the clues to figure out who the bad guy was but also satisfied with the conclusion.
I highly recommend this story to anyone wanting to prep themselves for the potential Apple series as picturing Vince Vaughn as Yancy absolutely helped the story along.