Squeeze Me

Carl Hiassen has been writing ‘comic crime novels’ since the late 1980s. I put those three words in quotes because they’re the ones most often used to describe his work. But I think they do him a disservice. They suggest something cuddly, fluffy and forgettable three minutes after you turn the last page.

Yes, they’re funny. They’re packed with absurd characters doing ridiculous things in plots that just belt along. They are very easy to read. But underneath the laughs is a core of outrage that lets rips at greedy developers, corporate polluters, the despoliation of the Everglades – all the books are set in Florida – and grasping, selfish individuals of every hue, stripe and class.

In Squeeze Me, Hiassen takes aim at the Trump presidency and opens up with every gun in his arsenal. The president (never actually named) lives in his Florida residence of Casa Bellicosa. When a wealthy socialite disappears from the grounds of a Palm Beach party and is later discovered to have been swallowed by a Burmese Python, a completely innocent (illegal) immigrant is charged with her murder. But once the socialite’s friends (the self-proclaimed POTUS Pussies) get hold of the story, it isn’t long before the president has scrambled onto the bandwagon and is bellowing that the entire USA is under threat from hoards of rampaging immigrants intent on widespread death and destruction.

There is a hero in all this, doing her best to right the many, many wrongs. Angie Armstrong, wildlife wrangler, knows about pythons and knows they don’t belong in Florida. So how did they get to Palm Beach? And why are there so many of them? Could somebody be hatching a plot against the plutocratic Florida wreckers? And if they are, what’s she going to do about it? If anything.

For me this is one of Carl Hiassen’s best (up there with Tourist Season, Double Whammy and Sick Puppy) and I’d recommend it to anyone with an eye for savagely funny satire. (But not to Trump supporters, whose own particular brand of outrage can be perused on Goodreads and Amazon.)