Squeeze Me - Carl Hiaasen

 Nobody does these things better than Carl Hiaasen.   Admittedly, his field is somewhat niche - comic capers, Florida-based, hopeless criminals, offbeat investigators, a recurring eco-warrior who was once the state governor - but, now more than ever, someone's got to do it.

It could be argued that history has come to Hiassen.   You land a corrupt populist President in his actual backyard representing everything Hiassen has always railled so vehemently against ...   Squeeze Me (2020) is Hiassen's first term take; I gather he has just released another for the second.   This way, I suppose, something good arises from all the chaos and graft.

Squeeze Me is very good.   It all starts routinely for Hiassen: an elderly and very wealthy widow gets eaten by a giant snake at a high-end Charity Ball.   Wildlife removal expert Angie Armstrong is called in to assist with the cover up.   Angie is somewhat hardass when it comes to wildlife.   She served time for feeding a deer poacher's hand to a grateful alligator.   She's willing to euthanise the snake but insists on delivering it, as required by law, to the state laboratory.   Those organising the cover-up, however, worry sbout the telltale bulge in the snake's gut.   So they hire two deadbeats to deal with the problem.

The deadbeats inevitably celebrate partial success with a wild night at a downtown titty bar.   Thus the headless snake, complete with bulge, finds its way to the middle of a road which brings the First Lady's motorcade to a halt.   This brings in the Feds and the Secret Service.   It also inspires the First Lady's perma-tanned husband to a new crusade.   Kki Pew Fitzsimmons was a member of the President's Palm Beach fanclub (known as the Potussies, which is at least preferable to their first choice of name) who have raised millions for him.

Obviously, when Hiassen alludes to the President and First Lady, he does not mean D J Trump and the lovely Melania.   The entirely fictional characters in Squeeze Me are referred to only by their Secret Service handles, Mastadon and Mockingbird.   Thus Mockingbird is free to have a hot affair with her personal CIA bodyguard while Mastadon gets hot and not especially heavy with a compliant pole dancer of his acquaintance.   Likewise, the estate where Mastadon and Mockingbird live is in no way to be confused with Mar-a-Lago.   It can't be because Case Belicosa is gross and tacky.

The disappearance storyline concludes about halfway through, which struck me as odd.   The real story is the snakes, which leads us to our ongoing hero Skink and his involvement with the madcap chaos at the Annual Gala Ball at Casa Belicosa.   Which is enormous fun.

I've been reading Hiassen for something like thirty years.   I've even read his collaborations with William Montalbano.   I can therefore state with authority: HIASSEN NEVER FAILS TO DELIVER.

Heroes and Villains - Angela Carter

 Angela Carter has been an inspiration to me, from her radio plays to her arcane fairy tales and her novels, some of which I have reviewed on this blog.   The Bloody Chamber and Nights at the Circus must have been read before I started the blog.   Thankfully Carter managed a significant output before her early death.

Heroes and Villains was published in 1969, which would place it about midway in her truncated career.   She seems to have been in full possession of all her powers.   I found it a masterful piece of writing, beguiling and shocking in equal measure.   As always in her best work, it centres on a young woman discovering her sexuality.

The setting is Britain post apocalypse.   The survivors have grouped into three known clusters, the Professors, the Barbarians and the Out People.   The Professors are the remnants of civilisation who now literally occupy ivory towers.   Barbarians descend from gypsies and travellers.   The Out People occupy the fallen cities and because they hunkered out the blast are often hideously mutated.   The three peoples attack and loot one another.

Marianne is the daughter of a Professor.   As a young child she watched her brother die during a Barbarian raid.   At sixteen she leaves her sanctuary and is promptly captured by the Barbarian Jewel Lee Bradley, the same Barbarian who cut down Marianne's brother, who carries her off to his camp.   As a Bradley Jewel is Barbarian aristocracy, along with his numerous brothers.   Their foster mother Mrs Green was also once a Professor's daughter.   Another Professor who has crossed over is the shaman Donally, who has tutored Jewel.   Donally is so decadent that he keeps his son chained up and beats him.   He fancies himself the last remaining artist and has tattooed the story of Adam accepting the apple from Eve on Jewel's back.

Jewel casually takes Marianne's virginity as a gesture of ownership.   Marriage then becomes inevitable.   Neither much wants it, despite being mutually attracted.   But they come to terms - which is really what the book is about: the accommodations we all make in order to move forward in life.

It is beautifully done.  Carter conjures up an English arcadia re-growing from the blasted ruins.   Her characters are vivid, perverse, compelling.   Her proses sizzles.   Her masterstroke is to leave the story halfway through.   By which I mean, there is a decisive climax, but so many strands cry out for resolution.   We are desperate to find out what happens next.   Our minds inevitably run on - and only the very best of books let that happen.

Three Tales - Gustave Flaubert

 

Flaubert's Trois Contes are often said to be an ideal way of introducing readers to his heavier-duty wotk.   That's definitely how I feel about them.   The range here is quite something: gentle naturalism in 'A Simple Heart,' Gothic myth in 'The Legend of St Julian,' and historicism in 'Herodias'.   It is tempting and inevitable to see them as miniatures of Madame Bovary and A Sentimental Education, The Temptation of Saint Anthony, and Salammbo.

I enjoyed them all.   The quality of Krailsheimer's translation helped, as did his introduction.   I found I didn't need the notes but they are there for those who do.   I don't have a favourite; all three have their different merits.   I suppose what held me was Flaubert's profound empathy for his fellow human beings, with their weaknesses and their saving graces.   I found it fascinating how the forerunner of Christ, Iaokanann, is kept 'offstage' while his fate is determined.

Death Deserved - Jorn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger

 This seems to be the first of the Blix/Ramm series.   In other words, I have read the first three in the wrong order.   No matter.   They work perfectly well as standalone novels.

We start in 1999, with the incident that changed everything for Blix, his partner-now-boss Gard Fosse, and Emma Ramm.   Then, almost twenty years later, Blix is given a missing person enquiry.   Well know Nordic athlete Sonja Nordstrom, whose tell-all memoir is to be published today, has failed to show up to the various launch events.   Has she just taken herself off - or has she been kidnapped.

Eventually they find a body on a boat owned by Sonja.   It's not her.   Someone is playing with the police and killing second rate celebs in a warped countdown order.   Meanwhile Blix's daughter Iselin is appearing on Norway's big reality show, Worthy Winner.   Could she possibly be in any danger?  (Anyone who's read anything by Horst knows the answer to that one.)   Emma, as a celebrity news blogger, is obviously drawn in.   It's fascinating how the authors handle the realisation about the role Blix played in her life.   They do it really well.

It's a cracking book with a couple of really cunning twists at the end.   I didn't guess who the villain was, yet the answer was entirely credible.   No wonder the Blix/Ramm series has now extended to five.   I'm definitely on the lookout for Stigma and Victim.

Libra - Don DeLillo

 Libra (1988) is Don DeLillo's version of the Kennedy Assassination conspiracy.   Primarily, it is the Oswald story with a background narrative of various conspirators who draw him into their network, largely to cover themselves over the Bay of Pigs fiasco.   The conspirators include CIA agents, Guy Bannister associates, and most compelling of all David Ferrie, the alopecia-victim who knows them all.   A third narrative strand is the recruitment of Jack Ruby by mobsters who want the Oswald problem to go away.   Was Oswald just a patsy?   Let's settle for not entirely.

It is really well done - this story is so compelling, it's hard to see how any retelling can fall short.   Oswald is well drawn.   One problem, which is historical, though I only realised it on reading this, is that he was so young (only 24) and yet his backstory is so crammed with incident: marine, Russia, verious short term jobs, Marina, two kids, the attempt on General Walker...   I hadn't realised, either, how recently he had started work at the Book Depository.

Other than Oswald, Ferrie is the standout character in Libra.   DeLillo makes him splendidly creepy.   The night he tries to seduce Oswald will live long (and vividly) in my mind.   The making of the novel, though, is DeLillo's signature style, somewhere between Norman Mailer and James Ellroy, with dialogue, I feel, superior to both.   Brilliant - the best DeLillo I have read thus far.