Fever Beach
A Novel
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4.1 • 711 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author of Squeeze Me comes a wildly entertaining Florida caper—a razor-sharp send-up of modern American life, packed with misfits and mayhem.
“No satirist arrived at our dystopian moment better prepared than Carl Hiaasen.” —Slate
“[Carl Hiaasen’s] reality with a side of escapism is a blessing for our fragile minds at this time.” —Samantha Irby in The Atlantic
Welcome to Fever Beach, where the sun blazes, the politics are unhinged, and the characters are as volatile as a summer storm.
Dale Figgo is a half-baked crusader with the rare distinction of being kicked out of the Proud Boys—for being too dumb. His latest bad decision? Picking up a hitchhiker on a rainy afternoon while running an errand.
That errand sets off a chain reaction involving Viva Morales, a clever, resilient newcomer trying to rebuild her life post-divorce. She’s renting a room in Figgo’s apartment and working at the Mink Foundation—a philanthropic front with something far darker beneath the surface.
Circling them is Twilly Spree, a hotheaded environmentalist with too much cash and a gift for over-the-top revenge.
When dark money and twisted motives bring their worlds crashing together, Viva and Twilly become unlikely allies. Together, they uncover a tangle of corruption and conspiracy led by a plastic-surgery-loving billionaire couple and a clueless congressman with delusions of grandeur.
In his most outrageous and deliciously funny novel yet, Hiaasen delivers a gleefully chaotic portrait of contemporary madness.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bestseller Hiaasen (Squeeze Me) continues to romp through Florida's looniest corners in this hilarious send-up of white supremacists, crooked politicians, and the quirky citizens who oppose them. Dale Figgo is a down-on-his-luck neo-Nazi who has been rejected by both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers for smearing feces on the wrong statue on January 6, but it looks like his ship may be coming in. Congressman Clure Boyette has successfully solicited $2 million from racist philanthropists Claude and Electra Mink to fund Dale's nascent far-right organization, Strokers for Liberty, laundering the cash through a Habitat for Humanity knockoff that uses child labor. Opposing those bozos are Viva Morales, the Mink foundation's dissatisfied "wealth director" and Dale's reluctant tenant; independently wealthy social justice crusader Twilly Spree, who meets Viva by chance on a flight; and underage sex worker Galaxy, who has dirt on Boyette. Viva uncovers much of what's going on by fake-dating Boyette and snooping around Dale's house and recruits Twilly to help her topple their scheme—but Dale and his crew fail mostly through their own incompetence. This funhouse-mirror satire offers welcome opportunities to laugh at the absurdities of 21st-century politics. It's Hiaasen at his finest.
Customer Reviews
Another great read by the best.
No one better to entertain than Carl Hiaasen!
Almost too angry to be entertaining
Carl Hiaasen is angry. He should be. But anger makes polemics, and polemics aren’t funny. A little too much of the book is a screed against far-right politics in the form of characters who are not only extremely far right, but so extremely stupid that they are really just strawmen and not characters at all. Hiaasen would land more of his punches here if he had given his antagonists the shape of real people, whose beliefs and not their intelligence were their undoing. Instead he has fashioned himself as a vengeful god squashing ants.
Fortunately, Hiaasen’s gift for characterization has not completely abandoned him. The female and male protagonists are classic Hiaasen types, quirky and fun and light on their feet. The same is true for several ancillary characters who come and go.
The book kind of peters out at the climax, as though Hiaasen himself has grown tired of winning at his own game. But the heroes are victorious and the antagonists get their just desserts all the same, so he does put a bow on things. But it seems a bit halfhearted, especially since the antagonists all meet, more or less, the exact same fate.
If Apple allowed half stars, I’d give it two-and-a-half. Not good enough to be a must-read, but not lacking enough in worthwhile bits to be a must-skip. But they don’t, so I give it two stars, as the good stuff doesn’t quite tip the balance of the parts that don’t work as well.
Fever beach
It was a bit absurd at times. I enjoyed it just for fun. I think I have enjoyed his prior books more fully. His original hero was an improbable ex governor of the state of Florida if I remember correctly. This was a bit over-the-top with clichésbut still fun thank you.