Speed Week

Rating:
Summary: Too, too funny
Review: I foolishly paid attention to a reviewer below and avoided this book for more than a year, despite having enjoyed Smokeout. So then I read Deep Water and loved it. And then Black Sunshine and loved it. So finally I bought and read Speed Week. And you know what? Hiaasen was right! This book is absolutely, flat-out hilarious! Murder-for-hire in Daytona Beach, with some of the dumbest criminals in the world. As somebody who spent more than one Spring Break down there when I was in college, I can testify that Mr. Date didn't have to make much of this up. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Walks like a comedy, but...
Review: In The Art of Fiction, John Gardner says that a novelist who doesn't care about his characters suffers from "frigidity." Date suffers from ice.

The characters are 2-dimensional cartoons, used by Date to reach his predictable conclusion. The JR and stepmother plotline is trite, predictable, as well as the Nolan and Barbie plotline. Date always telegraphs what's going to happen next, leaving no suspense. The only mildly interesting character is Romer, but Date make him act out of character and illogically.

This was also the problem with Date's later novel, Smokeout, although I didn't quite see it then. Date doesn't let his characters free to be themselves. He doesn't respect them. He puts them in straitjackets. Frankly, if this guy weren't a journalist with personal contacts, no one would publish him, and I don't care what nice things Hiaasen says on the book jackets. You want to read REAL comedy in the tradition of Hiaasen, read TIM DORSEY! His stuff is REALLY funny!

Rating:
Summary: Out of print? WHY?
Review: Think I like his kooky characters even moreso than Hiassens if that's possible. Like going on a ride at Cedar Point and a ride at the Fair. They're similar, but not quite :-)