Razor Girl (Hiaasen)

Razon Girl 
Carl Hiaasen, 2016
Knopf Doubleday
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385349741


Summary
The new full-tilt, unstoppably hilarious and entertaining novel from the best-selling author of Skinny Dip and Bad Monkey

When Lane Coolman's car is bashed from behind on the road to the Florida Keys, what appears to be an ordinary accident is anything but (this is Hiaasen!).

Behind the wheel of the other car is Merry Mansfield—the eponymous Razor Girl—and the crash scam is only the beginning of events that spiral crazily out of control while unleashing some of the wildest characters Hiaasen has ever set loose on the page.

There's Trebeaux, the owner of Sedimental Journeys—a company that steals sand from one beach to restore erosion on another . . . Dominick "Big Noogie" Aeola, a NYC mafia capo with a taste for tropic-wear . . . Buck Nance, a Wisconsin accordionist who has rebranded himself as the star of a redneck reality show called Bayou Brethren . . . a street psycho known as Blister who's more Buck Nance than Buck could ever be . . . Brock Richardson, a Miami product-liability lawyer who's getting dangerously—and deformingly—hooked on the very E.D. product he's litigating against . . . and Andrew Yancy—formerly Detective Yancy, busted down to the Key West roach patrol after accosting his then-lover's husband with a Dust Buster.

Yancy believes that if he can singlehandedly solve a high-profile murder, he'll get his detective badge back. That the Razor Girl may be the key to Yancy's future will be as surprising as anything else he encounters along the way—including the giant Gambian rats that are livening up his restaurant inspections. (From the publisher.)

Razor Girl is a sequel to Hiaasen's 2013 Bad Monkey.

Author Bio
• Birth—March 12, 1953
• Where—Plantation, Florida, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Florida
• Awards—Newbery Honor Award
• Currently—lives in Tavernier, Florida

When one thinks of the classics of pulp fiction, certain things—gruff, amoral antiheroes, unflinching nihilism, and a certain melodramatic self-seriousness—inevitably come to mind. However, the novels of Carl Hiaasen completely challenge these pulpy conventions. While the pulp of yesteryear seems forever chiseled in an almost quaint black and white world, Hiaasen's books vibrate with vivid color. They are veritable playgrounds for wild characters that flout clichés: a roadkill-eating ex-governor, a bouncer/assassin who takes care of business with a Weed Wacker, a failed alligator wrestler named Sammy Tigertail. Furthermore, Hiaasen infuses his absurdist stories with a powerful dose of social and political awareness, focusing on his home turf of South Florida with an unflinching keenness.

Hiaasen was born and raised in South Florida. During the 1970s, he got his start as a writer working for Cocoa Today as a public interest columnist. However, it was his gig as an investigative reporter for the Miami Herald that provided him with the fundamentals necessary for a career in fiction. "I'd always wanted to write books ever since I was a kid," Hiaasen told Barnes & Noble.com. "To me, the newspaper business was a way to learn about life and how things worked in the real world and how people spoke. You learn all the skills—you learn to listen, you learn to take notes—everything you use later as a novelist was valuable training in the newspaper world. But I always wanted to write novels."

Hiaasen made the transition from journalism to fiction in 1981 with the help of fellow reporter Bill Montalbano. Hiaasen and Montalbano drew upon all they had learned while covering the Miami beat in their debut novel Powder Burn, a sharp thriller about the legendary Miami cocaine trade, which the New York Times declared an "expertly plotted novel." The team followed up their debut with two more collaborative works before Hiaasen ventured out on his own with Tourist Season, an offbeat murder mystery that showcased the author's idiosyncratic sense of humor.

From then on, Hiaasen's sensibility has grown only more comically absurd and more socially pointed, with a particular emphasis on the environmental exploitation of his beloved home state. In addition to his irreverent and howlingly funny thrillers (Double Whammy, Sick Puppy, Nature Girl, etc), he has released collections of his newspaper columns (Kick Ass, Paradise Screwed) and penned children's books (Hoot, Flush). With his unique blend of comedy and righteousness ("I can't be funny without being angry."), the writer continues to view hallowed Florida institutions—from tourism to real estate development—with a decidedly jaundiced eye. As Kirkus Reviews has wryly observed, Hiassen depicts "...the Sunshine State as the weirdest place this side of Oz.

Extras
• Perhaps in keeping with his South Floridian mindset, Hiaasen keeps snakes as housepets. He says on his web site, "They're clean and quiet. You give them rodents and they give you pure, unconditional indifference."

• Hiaasen is also a songwriter: He's co-written two songs, "Seminole Bingo" and "Rottweiler Blues", with Warren Zevon for the album Mutineer. In turn, Zevon recorded a song based on the lyrics Hiaasen had written for a dead rock star character in Basket Case.

• In Hiaasen's novel Nature Girl, he gets the opportunity to deal with a long-held fantasy. "I'd always fantasized about tracking down one of these telemarketing creeps and turning the tables—phoning his house every night at dinner, the way they hassle everybody else," he explains on his web site. "In the novel, my heroine takes it a whole step farther. She actually tricks the guy into signing up for a bogus ‘ecotour' in Florida, and then proceeds to teach him some manners. Or tries. (Bio fom Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
There’s something unhinged about Hiaasen. In fact, it would be fun to live inside his mind and watch the synapses spark that high-octane imagination of his. Really, how on God’s good earth does anyone come up with a car accident involving a woman driving 60 miles an hour down a highway while shaving her, well…her bikini area. That’s Hiassen's opening shot, and it only gets wackier.  READ MORE
P.J. Adler - LitLovers


Carl Hiaasen's irresistible Razor Girl meets his usual sky-high standards for elegance, craziness and mike-drop humor. But this election-year novel is exceptionally timely, too. It illustrates the dog-whistle effects of bigotry that take the form of entertainment, with a plot that revolves around a Duck Dynasty-type reality show, the sermons delivered by one of its stars and a crazed fan who decides to follow what he thinks are the star's teachings. Mr. Hiaasen—and probably only Mr. Hiaasen—could weave this into a book that's still so funny.
Janet Maslin - New York Times


[A] good part of the pleasure of Razor Girl is in the casual, no-sweat way he sets it all up. Once it's in motion, things happen fast, new people (and animals) keep turning up to play their parts in the comedy, and the whole complicated apparatus gives off a soothing hum, like a smooth-running motor on a fishing boat. You'd think the engine would overheat, but somehow it never does; it doesn't even sputter. The secret is Hiaasen's premium, high-grade comic prose, which keeps everything at the right temperature…By the end of this complicated story, some of his characters get what they want, many do not, an unfortunate few get what they deserve, and the great state of Florida remains just as it was, implacably weird. But, thanks to Carl Hiaasen, it feels kind of renourished.
Terrence Rafferty - New York Times Book Review


[B]reezy, enjoyable sequel to 2013’s Bad Monkey.... [R]eaders will be hoping that Yancy and the other quirky denizens of Hiassen’s Florida will soon be back for another screwball adventure.
Publishers Weekly


Since this is Hiaasen, expect wild characters, starting with Razor Girl (aka Merry Mansfield), perpetrator of car-crash scams and linked to Andrew Yancy, who lost his detective badge after confronting his ex-lover's husband with a Dust Buster but seeks to get it back by solving a murder.
Library Journal


(Starred review.) [An] immensely entertaining wild ride.... Merry Mansfield, the Razor Girl, is sharp, that's for sure, and one of the coolest characters Hiaasen has ever brought to the page.... [F]or anyone with a taste for Hiaasen’s skewed view of a Florida slouching toward Armageddon.
Booklist


(Starred review.) Rejoice.... South Florida's master farceur is back to reassure you that fiction is indeed stranger than truth.... [Hiaasen'] delirious plotting...fits right into his antic world. Relax, enjoy, and marvel anew at the power of unbridled fictional invention.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use our generic mystery questions.)

GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers

1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they flat, one-dimensional heroes and villains?

2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you begin to piece together what happened?

3. Good crime writers embed hidden clues in plain sight, slipping them in casually, almost in passing. Did you pick them out, or were you...clueless? Once you've finished the book, go back to locate the clues hidden in plain sight. How skillful was the author in burying them?

4. Good crime writers also tease us with red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray? Does your author try to throw you off track? If so, were you tripped up?

5. Talk about the twists & turns—those surprising plot developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray.

1. Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
2. Are they plausible or implausible?
3. Do they feel forced and gratuitous—inserted merely to extend the story?

6. Does the author ratchet up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? A what point does the suspense start to build? Where does it climax...then perhaps start rising again?

7. A good ending is essential in any mystery or crime thriller: it should ease up on tension, answer questions, and tidy up loose ends. Does the ending accomplish those goals?

1. Is the conclusion probable or believable?
2. Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
3. Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
4. Perhaps it's too predictable.
5. Can you envision a different or better ending?

8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?

9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?

(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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