Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen

Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Goodreads Synopsis:

Andrew Yancy—late of the Miami Police and soon-to-be-late of the Monroe County sheriff’s office—has a human arm in his freezer. There’s a logical (Hiaasenian) explanation for that, but not for how and why it parted from its shadowy owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, the sheriff might rescue him from his grisly Health Inspector gig (it’s not called the roach patrol for nothing). But first—this being Hiaasen country—Yancy must negotiate an obstacle course of wildly unpredictable events with a crew of even more wildly unpredictable characters, including his just-ex lover, a hot-blooded fugitive from Kansas; the twitchy widow of the frozen arm; two avariciously optimistic real-estate speculators; the Bahamian voodoo witch known as the Dragon Queen, whose suitors are blinded unto death by her peculiar charms; Yancy’s new true love, a kinky coroner; and the eponymous bad monkey, who with hilarious aplomb earns his place among Carl Hiaasen’s greatest characters.

Here is Hiaasen doing what he does better than anyone else: spinning a tale at once fiercely pointed and wickedly funny in which the greedy, the corrupt, and the degraders of what’s left of pristine Florida—now, of the Bahamas as well—get their comeuppance in mordantly ingenious, diabolically entertaining fashion.

My Review:

This was an interesting read. I struggled through the beginning of the story because I didn't really feel any connection to the characters. Thankfully, as the story progressed, I did become a little more intrigued as to how the story would play out.

This was one of those mysteries where everything that can go wrong during the investigation will go wrong. Although this book has been noted as humorous, I didn't find it much so. There moments that were silly, but I never found myself laughing out loud (that is how I define a humorous book). I never saw the plot twists coming and was surprised by the ending, so Carl Hiaasen has that going for him.

My only concern is that the story stretched out longer than necessary and had a weak ending. A great story doesn't necessarily have to reach a certain number of words, pages, or chapters. If written well, it can be as short as it needs to be.

Read from September 21 to 25, 2015

Top 5 Genres*: Fiction, Mystery, Humor, Mystery/Crime, Humor/Funny
*According to Goodreads
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My ratings system
5 stars - I absolutely loved it
4 stars - Good book and would recommend
3 stars - Decent book, but wasn't spectacular
2 stars - Not good, but was able to finish it
1 stars - Did not finish (DNF) and I don't usually rate a book I haven't finished (just to be fair to the author)

View all my reviews