Strip Tease

by Carl Hiaasen

Overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From “Florida’s most entertainingly indignant social critic” (New York Times Book Review)—an inventive tale yet of savage appetites and sweet justice.

Only in America could an innocent, if drunken, guest of honor at a strip joint bachelor party become a mortal threat against Big Money and Big Government. Only in south Florida, land of roadside honky-tonks and sinister pleasure boats—not to mention blackmail and murder—would a virtuous topless dancer join forces with a cool but clueless cop. And only in the fiction of Carl Hiaasen do readers experience riveting suspense and razor-sharp characters along with the most wicked humor imaginable.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780525431770
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/04/2020
Pages:	464
Sales rank:	150,467
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.80(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

CARL HIAASEN was born and raised in Florida. He is the author of thirteen previous novels, including the best sellers Razor Girl, Bad Monkey, Star Island, Nature Girl, Skinny Dip, Sick Puppy, and Lucky You, and five best-selling children’s books, Hoot, Flush, Scat, Chomp, and Skink. His most recent work of nonfiction is Dance of the Reptiles, a collection of his columns from The Miami Herald.www.carlhiaasen.com CARL HIAASEN is available for select readings and lectures. To inquire about a possible appearance, please contact Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau at [e-mail] or visit www.prhspeakers.com.

Hometown:

Tavernier, Florida

Place of Birth:

South Florida

Education:

Emory University; B.A., University of Florida, 1974

Editorial Reviews

Inventive blackmail schemes, grisly murders, power politics, greed, revenge and sex all figure in Hiaasen's ( Native Tongue ) latest comic crime novel. At the Eager Beaver, a topless bar in Fort Lauderdale, former FBI clerk Erin Grant dances nightly to pay for legal fees in her custody fight for her young daughter. There David Dilbeck, a poorly disguised, somewhat kinky and imbecilic U.S. Congressman owned by the state's sugar interests, is recognized by a sharp-eyed regular who, infatuated with Erin, initiates a blackmail plan meant to influence her court case. The resulting mayhem, occuring in an election year, involves machinations up to the highest state level, most of which are orchestrated by Dilbeck's arrogant, sleazy lawyer, and leads to an escalating body count that ends in a frenzied revenge caper arranged by the resourceful Erin deep in some sugarcane fields. Dead-on dialogue (``My boots are full of Vaseline,'' says Dilbeck one night, his only other clothing a black cowboy hat) and clearly limned characters from society's fringes--notably the taciturn, inventive Eager Beaver bouncer; a Cuban cop who works the case off hours; Erin's psychopathic ex, and his sister who raises hybrid wolves outside her double-wide trailer--round out this somewhat coincidence-ridden but consistently entertaining, warm-blooded tale. 60,000 first printing; Literary Guild alternate; author tour. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Hilarious....Your sides hurt after a while, just from reading. This novel could be dangerous to your ribs....Erin Grant, a real-honest-to-God human being, an appealing young woman, and Strip Tease are winners.
— The New York Times Book Review

Donald E. Westlake

Gonzo Florida fiction at its finest....Hilarious, wickedly satirical, cleverly plotted....Delivers home truths and gleeful laughs on every page. -- Entertainment Weekly

Gene Lyons

Vivid...a fast-moving tale of lust, blackmail, political corruption, and murder...More effective than newspaper headlines -- more fun, too. -- Playboy

Bigby Biehl

It's a wonder Florida hasn't yet banished Hiaasen (Native Tongue, etc.). Here's the Miami Herald reporter's fifth comic thriller—a marvelous madcap yarn pitting a stripper vs. a congressman—depicting the Sunshine State as the weirdest place this side of Oz. And the most venal as well: Hiaasen's satire is more barbed than ever here, pricking at Florida's apparently corrupt sugar industry. The typically bizarre action begins at Fort Lauderdale's Eager Beaver club, where a drunk fan is pawing star stripper Erin Grant. Out of the audience rushes an old gent who clubs the mauler with a bottle of Korbel. No big deal—except that the white knight is Congressman David Dilbeck, toady to sugar interests and up for reelection. Two men try to blackmail Dilbeck: one, a lovestruck fan of Erin's, wants the congressman to help reverse the judicial decision that granted custody of Erin's daughter to her psycho husband, Darrell; the other, a sleazy lawyer, wants money. Both wind up dead, victims of the sugar-growers' long and homicidal arm. Meanwhile, warfare erupts between the Eager Beaver and the rival Flesh Farm, and not even the Beaver's new attraction—patrons wrestling strippers in a vat of creamed corn—can stem the tide of customers to the Farm and it's "friction" dancing. In any case, Erin won't do corn, so—desperate for money to run away with her daughter, whom she's snatched from Darrell—she turns to dancing privately for the slobbering congressman. But now Darrell's hot on her trail, rusty knife in hand, and it takes all of Erin's wiles, plus some help from a kindly Cuban cop and the Eager Beaver's bald giant of a bouncer, to keep Darrell off her backand Dilbeck out of her pants—and bring justice to the sugar industry as well. Prime Hiaasen, and with a new edge: sexier, more violent, more political, but just as funny. (First printing of 60,000)

Kirkus Reviews