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Basket Case | 
 enlarge | Author: Carl Hiaasen
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Category: Book
List Price: $13.99
Buy New: $4.92
You Save: $9.07 (65%)
New (23) Used (20) Collectible (1) from $4.81
Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 33213
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 0446695645
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780446695640
ASIN: 0446695645
Publication Date: February 1, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: Brand New! Immediate Shipment!
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Product Description
Once a hotshot investigative reporter, Jack Tagger now bangs out obituaries for a South Florida daily, "plotting to resurrect my career by yoking my byline to some famous stiff." Jimmy Stoma, the infamous front man for Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, dead in a fishy-smelling scuba "accident" may be just the stiff Jack needs-if only he can figure out what happened. Standing in the way are (among others) an editor who wants Jack to "break her cherry," Stoma's ambitious pop-singer widow, and the soulless, profit-hungry newspaper owner Jack once publicly humiliated. As clues from Stoma's music give Jack Tagger the chance to trade obits for a story that could hit the front page, murder gives his career a new lease on life.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
Darkly funny and wildly entertaining April 16, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Other than "Team Rodent" I had never read a Hiaasen novel until this one. I had always heard good things and had listened to him compared to many of my favorite authors. Last night I read Basket Case (actually I finished it... I started it yesterday). Now that I have finally read a Hiaasen novel, I must say, I absolutely loved it.
First, it takes place in my home state of Florida, which I miss immensely so it was nice to be back there, if only in my mind. Second, Hiaasen is an extremely intelligent writer, I have read many "Humorous" books that border on insulting in the implausibility department when it comes to straining for a laugh. Hiaasen never crosses that line. The story is first and foremost and the writing style is smart, witty, and simple to read. You never have to go back and re-read a line to figure out what he was saying, and you are also never insulted by the childishness.
The characters are interesting, funny, charming, likeable, quirky and most of all, extremely human. I never doubted these people, heck I think I've met them before. The plot is interesting and plays out like a mystery... you find yourself really rooting for our leading man Jack Tagger. The book follows Jack, a once rising star in the newspaper world who shot off his mouth at the wrong time and was reassigned to the demeaning world of obituary writing. He now suffers from neurosis that come with the job... an obsession with death, mainly his own and how old he'll be when it happens. Up until now it has destroyed relationships and forced his career to dwindle to almost negligible. Then he covers the death of Jimmy Stoma, ex rocker and musical bad boy. Very quickly he decides that there is something strange about the death and the old reporter in him stirs.... And begins stirring up trouble.
The rest of cast of characters includes:
Emma, Jack's editor and possible love/hate interest
Juan the Cuban Sportswriter and Jack's best friend
Cleo - the dead rocker's wife and aspiring pop diva
Janet - the dead rocker's sister and arch enemy of Cleo
Carla - Jack's ex-girlfriend's daughter and club scene master
The crew gets even larger and more interesting... Colonel Tom is by far my favorite scene in the book, but I won't go into detail, you just have to read that one for yourself. In the end the book is darkly funny, engaging, and fairly high speed entertainment toward the end when everything starts hitting the fan. I know Tim Dorsey is often compared with Hiaasen, but in reality there is no comparison other than the setting of their books. Dorsey is extremely over the top while Hiaasen is firmly grounded in reality... albeit a strange and demented reality, but a believable one none-the-less. I would compare him more with Vonnegut (minus the sci-fi aspect) than Dorsey, Pratchett or Gaimen.
Surviving the Winter Blues February 19, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
For the past eight or nine years during February or March, I have made it a practice to curl up with one of Mr. Hiaasen's books. Living in Maine, the dreary, snowy months mentioned above can be especially taxing on even the most hearty of constitutions. Being mentally transported to the author's regular backdrop of Florida is a welcome respite. Mr. Hiaasen has never failed to entertain and 'Basket Case' follows that wonderful tradition. I particularly enjoy his quirky plots and earthy humor.
 Hiaasen delivers again! Funny, with the obligatory twist and goofy characters. February 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I only gave this book four stars instead of five, mostly because, as much as I love them and keep going back, all the Hiaasen novels are starting to look, smell, and feel the same to me.
This book follows pretty much the same formula - there's a guy, Jack, a reporter who lives alone, is kind of hung up on an ex, is a rebel in that he called out a bad guy (who happened to be his boss, and it was at a shareholder meeting) and so he's been punished by being relegated to the obituary pages.
When an interesting obituary of a former rock star crosses his desk, he senses a bigger story and has to fight with his (younger, female...you get the idea) boss/editor to let him research the story.
Basket Case has all the hallmarks of any other Hiaasen book - there's boats, chases, bad guys, good guys who are disaffected, nontraditional romance, goofy characters, and great dialogue.
The only thing is, when I read my first Hiaasen book I was like, "where does this guy come up with this stuff!?" and now I think I have an idea. He came up with it once, and keeps putting different twists on the same idea.
Don't get me wrong - I love it - but it's kind of like a Hershey bar - I already know everything about what it's going to be like and how it's going to end, I've enjoyed one a gazillion times, there's not much new. But hey, it's delicious and tempting and I keep going back, so it must be a formula that's working!
Very enjoyable mystery September 3, 2007
This is my second Hiaasen novel after Skin Tight, and I must say I enjoyed it immensely! The plotline, dealing with the mysterious and bizarre deaths of various members of 80's hard rock band, "Jimmy and The Slut Puppies" is both hilarious and engaging. Main character and narrator, investigative-journalist-busted-down-to-cheesy-obituary-writer, Jack Tagger, is a humourous and sympathetic hero. His obsession with outliving famous dead people is very funny, though I do have one minor quibble. Constant reference is made to the fact that Elvis Presley died at age 46 (Jack's current age). He didn't - Elvis died at 42. I'm surprised this very glaring factual blooper wasn't picked up when the novel was being edited. Perhaps it will be corrected for future reprints? Whilst the novel is ostensibly a murder-mystery, it also manages to skewer the parlous state of modern journalism and the way traditional media outlets like local newspapers have been taken over by bean counters and their obsession with the "bottom line". There are lots of amusing situations and great one-liners, and whilst the "mystery" aspect of the novel isn't that mysterious (you can guess whodunit very early in the piece) it is really great fun and very, very enjoyable. Two thumbs up!!
Amusing and irreverent July 16, 2007
While protagonist Jack Tagger Jr., 46, solves an aging rock star's murder, he also tries to pry out of his mother the truth about his own dead father. This, and his job as obit writer for the Union-Register, a Florida newspaper, have made him morbid. Jack is also at loose ends romantically. Although these themes (newspapers, the music business, and a death-obsessed obit writer looking for love) could be dispiriting in another writer's hands, here they are woven together light-heartedly. The novel is well plotted, with amusing surprises fairly achieved, and the outer and inner quests mesh and hold the reader's interest. The novel's characters are incisively drawn and appealing, and Hiaasen is good at dialogue. Jack grows in the course of the novel, avoiding the fate of the cynical reporter to which the "hard-boiled" fictional genre would condemn him. Since the novel is essentially comic and life triumphs over death, in the denouement good wins everywhere, and even the Union-Register is saved. The novel is sentimental -- Hiassen's crime fiction is not hard-boiled but soft-boiled. The novel is replete with ironies, the chief of them being, perhaps, that the truth is too complex and too compromising to be told in newspapers, though newspapers exist to publish the truth. "Basket Case" is written in the first person, and we see everything from Jack's perspective. Now and then Hiassen artfully conceals what Jack knows, adding to the suspense of the narrative, and Jack's limited perspective helps motivate surprising twists of the plot. Minor characters are well-drawn and interesting, though there are not that many examples of local color or vignettes of Floridian life. The city of Miami is never named, though it is implicit, and there is surprisingly little about local institutions, either; rather, the book features regional culture and contemporary Americana. The style is irreverent and contemporary, an expression of his protagonist's -- and, no doubt, Hiaasen's -- character; he has a taste for the burlesque. The novel sends up the newspaper business, but this serious subject is never developed for more than two pages at a time and takes a back seat to humorous entertainment. It is said, though, that Race Maggad III is a caricature of Tony Ridder, CEO of Knight-Ridder when it owned the Miami Herald.
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