Basket Case

by Carl Hiaasen

Book Overview

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 of 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...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 044661193X
• ISBN13: 9780446611930
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.1" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Very enjoyable mystery

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

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 dénouement 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.

Good to the Last Drop, er Page, that is

Because Jack Tagger, former ace investigative reporter for the Union-Register, had the gall to publicly humiliate the young CEO of the publishing group that purchased the paper in front of the shareholders, he has been demoted to writing obituaries. Jack listens to the re-released CDs of a lot of '70 rock bands as his music of choice, so when he hears that Jimmy Stoma, of Jimmy and the {small} Puppies, has turned up dead after scuba-diving in the Caribbean, he wants to know a little more. Unfortunately his obit editor allows him no leeway, so he investigates on his own time, because the headman for the rock group that gave the world such songs as "Mouth Full of Muscle," and the Grammy-Award winning album A PAINFUL BURNING SENSATION deserves more than a few lines in an obit. He sets out to dig up some answers, tracking down Stoma's widow, a Courtney Love type called Cleo Rio; the surviving band members; and Stoma's Internet stripper sister Janet. The story zooms along, powered by delicious dialogue, and a quirky but likable cast of characters such as - Juan Rodriguez, womanizing loyal friend and aspiring novelist; Emma Cole, ambitious newspaper editor who has a unique fetish for fluorescent nail-polish; Carla Candilla, the teenage club scene veteran and jailbait daughter of Jack's ex-girlfriend; and Colonel Tom, a 175 dead lizard who sleeps with the Dove Bars in Jack's freezer. This story will have you laughing the night away and before you know it, you'll be finished with a fine story and you'll have learned a heck a lot about the newspaper business too, in this mucho humorous story. Review submitted by Captain Katie Osborne

Muckraking, romance and murder

Carl Hiaasen turns his sharp eye on bottom-line journalism in this first-person novel of a former hot-shot reporter brought low by his own big, truth-telling mouth. When his medium-sized South Florida daily is bought out by a news-slashing, profit raking chain, Jack Tagger's ire, expressed at a stock holder's meeting, earns him a permanent spot on the obituary desk.But I get ahead of myself. Hiaasen introduces his murder subject on the very first page - James Stomarti - aka Jimmy Stoma of Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, dead in a diving accident at age 39, seven years younger than Tagger. "It's an occupational hazard for obituary writers - memorizing the ages at which famous people have expired, and compulsively employing such trivia to track the arc of one's own life."Seeing a winding path to the front page, Tagger stealthily begins to probe, interviewing Stoma's young, ambitious widow, a singer cruising the latest trend and looking for her second hit, Jimmy's sister, an internet stripper, and the surviving Slut Puppies. But when the Slut Puppies begin to die and Jimmy's sister vanishes, even his slime-ball publisher and fretful young editor can't derail Tagger's investigation.Though more of a straight mystery than previous blackly madcap outings ("Sick Puppy," "Strip Tease") and not all that mysterious, "Basket Case," fueled by a highly likeable narrator, includes a few hilariously zany touches like assault by frozen lizard, and features a romance worthy of Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. Morosely sardonic and self-deprecating and obsessed with death, Jack Tagger infuses the story with humor while working his way towards a particularly satisfying revenge.

Obit Worthy.

Like many Nelson DeMille novels, Carl Hiaasen writes his "Basket Case" from the first person viewpoint. And like many of DeMille's protagonists, obit writer Jack Tagger tells us the story with a smart-assed dialogue. Dead is James Bradley Stomarti, also know as, Jimmy Stoma. You know. The Jimmy Stoma, lead singer in his band, Jimmy and the Slut Puppies. The Slut Puppies were famous for the hit single "Basket Case" from the "Floating Hospice" album. That Jimmy Stoma. Anyway, to bring you up to date, he died. It seems that Jimmy was a regular rocker too. Like many of his peers he was into alcohol, drugs, and had a rap sheet longer than his Fender guitar. He'd been arrested on a regular basis for such things as; indecent exposure, (he was caught wearing a rubber Pat Robinson mask and a day-glow condom), he crashed his SeaDoo in to the SS Norway, gets popped for whizzing on Englebert Humperdink's limo, got busted for stealing a bundt cake, you name it. All in all, this makes for a very interesting and "obit worthy" character. According to Jack Tagger, anyway.Jimmy's death may not have been an accident, and so the mystery begins. Jack, the obit writer, has his suspicions. While Jack's editor, Emma, has the "hots" for Jack. This is where the sexual tension weaves its way into the storyline. I mention Emma because Carl Hiaasen is a master of great dialogue and great characterization. Taggar describes Emma: "Emma has the bearing of an exotic falcon." Those eight words told me everything that I needed to know about Emma.This one is five stars and highly recommended. I know you will enjoy "Basket Case" as much as I did. Cammy Diaz, lawyer.