Literature / Sick Puppy

Following

Sick Puppy is a 2000 novel by Carl Hiaasen.

It's just another day in the life of Palmer Stoat, one of the most powerful and influential lobbyists in the State of Florida (just ask him), when he notices a beat-up pickup truck following him down the Florida Turnpike. He has no idea that he's attracted the ire of Twilly Spree, a young eco-warrior with anger-management issues and several million dollars inherited from his grandfather. Twilly's Berserk Button has been triggered by watching Stoat casually litter on the highway, but soon he discovers from Stoat's disgruntled Trophy Wife, Desirata, that Stoat is playing a part in targeting a small Gulf island for development. Since it's a Hiaasen novel, Hilarity Ensues.

The novel later received a standalone sequel twenty-five years later in Fever Beach, which prominently features Twilly.

Tropes in this novel:

• Affluent Ascetic: Twilly Spree inherited $5 million from his grandfather when he was 18, invested it wisely and lives modestly off the dividends. He drives a battered pickup truck, dresses like a beach bum or a mate on a fishing boat, and prefers camping in the wilderness to staying in hotels. His biggest splurges are a roomy station wagon (to accommodate McGuinn's flatulence), and buying Toad Island at the end of the novel, renaming it for his mother and deeding it for preservation.
• AM/FM Characterization: Hiaasen, a die-hard fan of hard rock from the 60s and 70s, always uses musical taste to divide his good characters from his bad ones. Stoat, deliberately crafted to be the most loathsome character in a novel packed with them, includes among his many annoying habits that of dropping rock lyrics into everyday conversation and always getting them wrong.
• Amusing Injuries: Instead of killing Dick Artemus, Skink yanks down his pants and etches the word "SHAME" into his buttocks with a buzzard beak.
• "Anger Is Healthy" Aesop: Skink - who's been living wild in the Everglades since The '70s - finds the whole concept of anger management therapy, which Twilly said he was required to attend a course in, hilarious. He asks why the eggheads who thought up that concept couldn't come up with something useful like Greed management.
  Skink: Son, there's nothing shameful about anger. Sometimes it's the only sane response to this world we live in.
• Arc Words: "Sick world."
• Asshole Victim:
  • Mr. Gash, a Psycho for Hire whose favorite pastime is listening to grizzly emergency calls, gets shot in the mouth and pinned under a bulldozer after he tries to kill Twilly and rape Desi. When he tries to call 911, his lost tongue makes him unable to call for help and he dies soon after.
  • Palmer Stoat and Robert Clapley are stomped and gored respectively by the black rhino they're hunting after it's startled by McGuinn. Clapley's death stops the development of Toad Island in its tracks.
  • Dick Artemus escapes from the fiasco of the rhino hunt with his life, but pictures snapped by Willie Vasquez-Washington of the incident will seriously harm his reelection prospects.
• Being Evil Sucks: the villains of Hiaasen's novels, in their ruthless, single-minded pursuit of money, sex and power, often end up getting it, and it's miserable.
  • Palmer Stoat, big-time lobbyist and self-described as "one of the most powerful human beings in the State of Florida" has his life "reduced to a tabloid freak show", mostly through dealing with his own clients.
    Here he was, standing in the scorching sun like a eunuch servant, obediently holding a silk robe for a man – his own client! – who had filled both pockets with dolls. Not only dolls, but a miniature pearl-handled hairbrush. The bristles looked exquisitely fine, and the handle... my God, could it possibly be? Stoat squinted in amazement. Pearl! Palmer Stoat slowly looked up... what's happening to this country of ours? What's happening to me?
  • Likewise, Robert Clapley, the Barbie Doll-fetishist, has finally realized his lifelong dream of hooking up with two women that can be surgically modified into identical twins, only to have to cope with their infidelity and drug-fueled craziness;
  • Governor Dick Artemus is ill-equipped to deal with the actual daily grind of "jerkwater Florida politics" and misses being a car salesman in Jacksonville - "you know, I never had to deal with shit like this in Toyotaland."
• Beleaguered Assistant: an often recurring trope in Hiaasen's novels. Sick Puppy gives us Lisa June Peterson, a college co-ed Hired for Their Looks by Governor Artemus who astonished her boss with her "unexpected and dazzling competence". It is commonly understood around Tallahassee that it is largely thanks to her that the governor's office "appear[s] to run smoothly" because of her role as his executive assistant, since Artemus himself is lazy, habitually drunk, and "famous for his insectine attention span."
• Berserk Button: Most of Hiaasen's protagonists have noble intentions and very bad impulse control. The whole madcap chain of events is set in motion when Twilly sees Palmer Stoat littering with abandon on the Florida Turnpike;
• Black Comedy: The fate of Mr. Gash, a Psycho for Hire who relaxes by listening to recordings of emergency calls. He ends up pinned under a bulldozer, with a gunshot wound to the mouth. Fortunately, he manages to get ahold of Jim Tile's cell phone and call 911. Unfortunately...
  Dispatcher: Sir, do you speak English?
  Caller: Eh izzh Engizh! Mah ung gaw zzha off! Whif ah gung!
  Dispatcher: Hang on, sir, I'm transferring you to someone who can take the information.
  Caller: Ngooohh! Hep! Peezh!
  Dispatcher Two: Diga. ¿Dónde estás?
  Caller: Aaaaaagghh!
  Dispatcher Two: ¿Tienes una emergencia?
  Caller: Oh fugghh. I gaw die.
• Blonde Republican Sex Kitten: Estella is a prostitute who only screws registered Republicans and shares a lot of her right leaning thoughts with Stoat. It's never actually stated if she is blonde though.
• Bookends: The novel's plot starts with Twilly deciding to teach someone a lesson for littering and ends when he and Skink decide to teach more litterbugs a lesson.
• Born in the Wrong Century: Governor Richard Artemus begins relaxing at an informal deal-making session at a hunting lodge:
  This is what it must have been like in the good old days, when the important business of government was conducted far from the stuffy confines of the Capitol, convivial settings that encouraged frank language and unabashed horse trading, free from the scrutiny of overzealous journalists and an uninformed public.
• "Both Sides Have a Point" Remark: Twilly and Desi have a small fight on Toad Island:
  • She calls him out for his selfishness in being willing to go to any lengths (including possibly murder) to save the island from development, pointing out that him going to prison would not be good for their burgeoning relationship.
  • Twilly rejoins that if she wants a life partner who will give her security and comfort and doesn't actually give a damn about anything besides money (including her feelings), she could always go back to her "worthless dickhead of a husband."
• Cannot Dream: Twilly has never had a dream. After sharing a bed (platonically) with Desie, he spontaneously develops the ability, but it's more thematic than actually relevant to the plot.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Both Twilly and Skink are aware that their need to "impart a lesson" to whatever rude and inconsiderate people happen to cross their path is a handicap to their personal relationships.
  Desi: You think you can fix these people? You think you can teach them something?
  Twilly: Call me an optimist.
  Desi: Look at her, for God's sake. She's in a whole other world, another universe. I'm an expert, remember? I'm married to one of them.
• Cigar Chomper: Palmer Stoat fetishizes cigar smoking to an absurd degree, collecting boxes of supposedly authentic Cuban brands and displaying them in his den like trophies, favoring a local cigar bar as his preferred hangout, and pleading for his wife to smoke one while they have sex, prompting the following exchange:
  Palmer: Come on, Des, it's a very erotic look.
  Desirata: They cause cancer, you know? Tumors in the soft palate, you find that erotic?
• Copping a Feel: In a Flash Back, Governor Artemus, while drunk, places his hands on Lisa June Peterson's breasts. Instead of screaming, she calmly puts down the phone and tells him in no uncertain terms he'll get 60 seconds to do so, and he might as well enjoy it, because he won't get to do anything else to her.
• Egomaniac Hunter: Palmer Stoat. He shoots endangered species at private (and probably illegal) game reserves around Florida, and has decorated his den in a "Great White Hunter" motif, with his various trophy heads. Skink and Twilly both find it "utterly pathetic", since the hunts are all canned, the prey animals are too old, sick, or tame to present any threat or challenge, and Stoat has never been to Africa (though he tries to fake it with a prostitute because he Saw It in a Movie Once).
• Establishing Character Moment: Early in the novel, Twilly dumps five tons of raw garbage into someone's convertible because that person was littering.
• Everyone Has Standards: Willie Vasquez-Washington is a somewhat Corrupt Politician, always holding out for deals that benefit his associates and family in addition to his community, but when he gets dragged along on the hunting trip, he only brings a camera to take pictures and feels a slight sense of discomfort at the hunt, which only increases upon finding out that his companions are mainly just interested in the rhino horn for sex powder.
  ...and while Willie Vasquez-Washington was not, in any sense of the term, a nature freak, he had no particular desire to watch some poor animal get shot by the likes of Clapley.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Hiaasen's corrupt or villainous characters, as intelligent as they otherwise are, simply cannot understand that the heroes are pursuing them for reasons of justice or integrity. Whenever they bother to puzzle over Twilly or Skin's motives for interfering with the development of Shearwater Island, and the sometimes bizarre lengths they will go to, the villains just Hand Wave it as a sign of the "sick world" they live in.
• Evil Poacher: Palmer Stoat and various other antagonists hunt animals (typically feeble and immobile ones) on a local game farm. Interestingly, the proprietor is portrayed as more of a Punch-Clock Villain who sometimes wonders if he should have taken up guiding photo safaris instead.
• Finger in the Mail: Twilly kidnaps Boodle/McGuinn and holds him hostage to force Stoat to kill the Toad Island bridge project. When Stoat dismisses the kidnapping as a hoax, Twilly sends him a severed ear via Federal Express. When he thinks Stoat isn't moving fast enough, he sends him a severed paw. Neither belong to McGuinn; Twilly removed them from a roadkill Labrador he found on the highway.
• Gaia's Vengeance: When the supposedly docile rhino being stalked by the villains erupts into a berserk rage, Twilly's impulse is to tackle his dog, who provoked it, but Skink just says, "let it happen, son." From his tone of voice, Twilly finally understands that, in spite of the crushing setbacks he has experienced his whole life, watching his natural home being transformed into an environmental catastrophe, what sustains Skink is "an indefatigable faith that Nature eventually settles all scores, sets all things straight."
• Glass Eye: Skink wears these in place of his missing eye; since they were originally crafted for taxidermied animals, the eyes are usually not a perfect fit for the socket, and of a disconcerting color.
• Gold Digger: Downplayed and deconstructed. Desiratra Brock went to college with the intent of becoming a schoolteacher, but she dropped out of college after becoming engaged to a professional basketball player who showered her with gifts as well as affection. Her two other fiancees were also wealthy ("she told herself this was coincidence, but knew better") as was Stoat, her eventual husband. In private with Twilly, she unhappily admits that she married Palmer "for security, which is a nice way of saying I married him for the dough", and just as unhappily reflects that she's become accustomed to a level of affluence, almost against her will, that means her dreams of going back to school and finishing her teaching degree are just dreams.
• Great Way to Go: Subverted; whenever a character's death is referenced, one of his friends will say, "at least he died doing something he loved," or some variant thereof, and another character will privately reflect how trite the sentiment is. At Palmer Stoat's funeral, the minister comforts the mourners that "Palmer's last day was spent... walking the great outdoors [he] loved so much." No mention that he was trampled by the black rhinoceros he had arranged for his client to illegally shoot.
• Greed: The driving motivation for nearly all of Hiaasen's villainous characters; as Michael Grunwald, reviewing Skinny Dip for The New Republic, inserted several references to the characters of Sick Puppy:
  The rapacious villains of Hiaasen's crime novels do not just commit murder, extortion, assault, fraud, and every conceivable variety of larceny; they also park in handicapped spaces [Lucky You], cheat on their trophy wives [Native Tongue and Palmer in this novel], tell racist jokes [Dick Artemus], flaunt their wealth in unusually obnoxious ways, and mangle the lyrics to good rock-and-roll songs [Palmer again]... They care more about their golf games than their families, and more about money than anything else on earth.
• Green Aesop: A practically ubiquitous theme in all of Hiaasen's novels; partially deconstructed in this novel, when it is explained that nature can take care of itself just fine, but humans are the ones asking for trouble by not taking care of their environment, since they have to live in it.
• Hoist With His Own Petard: a privilege of fiction writers that Hiaasen takes full advantage of. In this novel, Palmer Stoat is trampled to death by the black rhinoceros he arranged for his client to shoot, which they both assumed was too old and slow to be any kind of threat.
• Honest John's Dealership: Richard "Dick" Artemus, ran for the governorship of Florida while he was the Mayor of Jacksonville, and the multimillionaire owner of seven Toyota dealerships. As a politician, his "people skills" are flawless and he can charm anybody, "even [his] most virulent political enemies", into liking him. Without these people skills, voters and legislators would have noticed much sooner that he's corrupt, lazy, dumb as a brick, and entirely lacking in either convictions or any concrete agenda.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Governor Richard "Dick" Artemus is a double-barreled version. He has indefatigable faith in his own charm and charisma, when even his political enemies concede that, in person, he's "impossible not to like[.]" He therefore insists on a one-on-one conversation with Skink, the former governor driven from office by corruption and overdevelopment, to offer his personal thanks in helping to capture Twilly, just to ensure that one of Artemus's biggest campaign contributors wouldn't see any more hitches in building a golf resort. He is confident that he can win Skink over with his personal charms and make him forget about the trifling fact that Artemus blackmailed him into helping by threatening to have his mentally ill brother thrown onto the street. During the confrontation that follows, Skink makes clear that the only reason Skink doesn't "open you up like a mackerel" is that it might jeopardize the futures of his brother, Jim Tile, and Lisa June, for whom Skink cares.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Most of Hiaasen's protagonists prefer the company of animals to humans, and are quick to recognize that while animals are more than capable of violence, it is never gratuitous as it is with humans.
• Hunting Is Evil:
  • One of Twilly's ex-girlfriends broke up with him after introducing him to her father went badly wrong: the man took Twilly to a quail-hunting plantation to "test [his] character"; Twilly shot four birds, enough to make a decent meal, and called it a day. The father insisted that hunting isn't about food, it's about the joy of shooting things out of the sky. When the father took off in a private plane, "someone" hiding in the woods stitched a neat "X" pattern into one of the wings with a semi-automatic rifle, forcing it to make an emergency landing.
  • The novel's Bookends take place at the "Wilderness Veldt Plantation", a private game reserve where rich Floridians can shoot endangered species. The animals are typically procured from zoos or private collectors rather than from the wild, and are always too old, sick, or tame to present any threat or challenge to the "hunters." One of these animals, a deaf, toothless lion procured from a third-rate circus act in Las Vegas, was so decrepit that the Plantation's owners thought even the dumbest Egomaniac Hunter wouldn't pay money to shoot it - they were wrong.
    Durgess: That was different. Teeble was a chump.
    Lando: All our customers are chumps. They damn sure ain't hunters. They just want something large and dead for the wall.
• Ignored Epiphany: a recurring trope for Hiaasen's villainous characters, who are hit with the consequences of their own folly and ignorance over and over again, yet always fail to take the hint. As Michael Grunwald, reviewing Skinny Dip for The Washington Post summarized: "They don't listen and they don't learn."
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Guns in every flavor are so abundant in Florida that few people take the time to become halfway decent shots. Palmer Stoat and Robert Clapley both fancy themselves to be big-game hunters, but both of them are so unused to shooting at animals that are "more-or-less ambulatory" that when the rhino charges at them, they both take aim, fire simultaneously, and "naturally" both miss completely.
• Inherent in the System: This is part of Skink's Dark and Troubled Past. Now a crazed, roadkill-eating eco-warrior hermit, he was originally Clinton Tyree, the beloved governor of Florida who tried to root out the vast governmental corruption and corporate environmental devastation. He snapped and vanished after he failed, because it was simply too ingrained in the system. Lisa June Peterson, the current governor's executive assistant, reflects:
  As popular as Clinton Tyree had been with the common folk of Florida, he stood no chance – none whatsoever – of disabling the machinery of greed and converting the legislature into a body of foresight and honest ethics. It was boggling to think a sane person would even try.
• Innocent Bigot: Gale, the "slug-like security guard" at the Ocean Reef Club. Jim Tile gets the impression that his racism is just an unfortunate side effect of being dumber than dirt:
  Gale: Can you swim?
  Tile: Yep.
  Gale: No shit? I thought black folks couldn't swim.
  Tile: Where you from, Gale?
  Gale: Lake City.
  Tile: Lake City, Florida?
  Gale: Is they another one?
  Tile: And you never met a black fellow who could swim?
  Gale: Sure, in the lakes. But I'm talking about the ocean, you know, salt water.
  Tile: And that's a different deal?
  Gale: Way different.
• Instant Turn-Off: Governor Artemus, while drunk, comes up behind Lisa June Peterson and gropes her breasts. She coolly tells him that he can have 60 seconds to fondle her, and he'd better enjoy it, because it's all he'll ever get from her in the nature of a sex act.
  ''The governor had recoiled as if he'd stuck his hands into a nest of yellowjackets and shakily retreated to the executive toilet until Lisa June went home.
• Ironic Echo: Stoat and Clapley repeatedly Hand Wave Twilly and Skink's eco-terrorist actions as being caused by the "sick world" they live in. After they are both killed by the black rhinoceros they were hunting, Skink goes through Clapley's pockets and is disturbed to find a Barbie doll dressed in a miniature safari outfit. Twilly just shrugs, "sick world."
• It's Cuban: Cigar Chomper Palmer Stoat, collects boxes of various Cuban cigars and displays them in his den along with various taxidermied animal heads, as trophies. He gets his comeuppance when one of his clients points out that at least one of the cigars he has been smoking is counterfeit, which Stoat refuses to believe because of the exorbitant amount he paid.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Hiaasen often specializes in creating a scene in which the hero/protagonist confronts the villain(s), trying to understand the motives for their actions, but always ends up unsatisfied with the outcome, when the villains turn out to be just as lazy, greedy, shallow and vacuous as their actions make them appear. Standing at the grave of her husband, Desirata Stoat reflects that he would be alive if he had "discovered an inner moral compass" and backed out of the development project that turned out so disastrously for him, but chides herself that she should have known there was no reasonable chance of that happening.
• Karmic Death: Hiaasen positively delights in dishing these out; frequently crossed with Ignored Epiphany and Jerk with a Heart of Jerk, as the villains remain entirely oblivious to the folly or wrongness of their own actions, and so likewise oblivious to the irony of their own fates. Palmer Stoat and Robert Clapley, who spend most of their time shooting illegal game that is too old and too sick to run, let alone pose a threat, are trampled and gored (respectively) by an African black rhinoceros. Mr. Gash who positively delights in listening to 911 calls of people dying horribly ends up getting his tongue shot off and calling 911. The operator cannot understand him and he ends up posthumously being immortalized in one of the types of tapes he likes to listen to. Dick Artemus, while escaping alive, may face the death of his political career thanks to the pictures taken by Willie of the rhino fiasco.
• Littering Is No Big Deal: Averted. It's the sight of Stoat casually throwing his lunch garbage on the highway as he's driving that leads Twilly to initially go after him - and that's before he even finds out Stoat's involved with a land development deal that will really hurt the environment.
• Mondegreen Gag: A Running Gag has Palmer repeatedly attempting to wax lyrical, but always getting the lyrics wrong, either because he heard them wrong or was too lazy to remember them correctly.
• Named After Somebody Famous: After kidnapping Palmer Stoat's dog, Twilly can't bring himself to call him by the name on his tag, "Boodle—a quaint synonym for 'bribe'", so he renames him McGuinn.
• Nature Is Not Nice: a practically ubiquitous theme in every one of Hiaasen's novels, also frequently used as a particular subversion of This Is Reality:
• Non-Idle Rich: Twilly is rich by fate - his grandfather left him $5 million when he was 18 - but devotes himself to stopping the building or a bridge to Shearwater Island that would mean environmental destruction (though he is a bit fanciful in his methods).
• No Party Given: Subverted In-Universe: while the Corrupt Politicians in Hiaasen's novels are sometimes identified as Democrats or Republicans, it is also made clear that their party affiliation has nothing at all to do with their corruption, or general incompetence. Deconstructed by Stoat's interior monologue:
  As a lobbyist, he had long ago concluded that there was no difference in how Democrats and Republicans conducted the business of government. The game stayed the same; it was always about favors and friends and who controlled the dough. Party labels were merely a way to keep track of the teams; issues were mostly smoke and vaudeville. Nobody believed in anything except hanging on to power, whatever it took.
• Not with Them for the Money: One of Twilly's ex-girlfriends was a woman named Mae, who was ten years older than him. Because she came from a wealthy family, Twilly was endeared by her lack of interest in the inheritance he had received from his grandfather.
• Not Worth Killing: Skink and Twilly agree that while the corrupt Governor would make a fitting Asshole Victim, there are so many equally corrupt politicians waiting to take his place that killing him would be a meaningless gesture.
• Nudity Equals Honesty: Skink, needing more information about the dog and woman he's supposed to rescue, breaks into the home of their owner/husband, sleazebag lobbyist Palmer Stoat, and interrupts Stoat while he's in the shower by smashing the glass door, because, in his words:
  Skink: In my experience, men who are buck naked and scared nutless tend to be more forthcoming. They tend to have better memories.
• "Reading Is Cool" Aesop: A recurring theme of Hiaasen's novels.
  • When Twilly breaks into Palmer Stoat's home for the first time, he sees a paperback novel and a magazine on Desie's nightstand, and no reading materials of any kind on Palmer's side of the bed; the "library" in his den is devoted to cigar boxes instead of books, and Twilly reflects that most rich assholes in Florida at least decorate their shelves with leather-bound volumes of William Faulkner or John Steinbeck, but Palmer doesn't even go that far.
  • Governor Richard Artemus's study is richly decorated with such volumes, but his Beleaguered Assistant knows he's never cracked a single one of them.
• Recurring Character: Former governor Clint Tyree (though he prefers to be called "Skink" or "Captain") has appeared in six of Hiaasen's novels; Twilly also becomes one, appearing subsequently in Skinny Dip, the young adult novel Scat, and Fever Beach.
• Returning the Wedding Ring: Desirata Stoat was been engaged six times, broke the engagement six times, and returned the ring five times. The time she kept the ring was because the breakup was over the man developing a disturbing fascination with body piercings, and she was afraid of what he'd do with it if it was returned.
• Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: Palmer Stoat proudly exhibits boxes of authentic Cuban cigars that he has bought from local dealers, only to be told that at least one, for which he paid $300, is loaded with counterfeits.
• Ripped from the Headlines: Dr. Brinkman's boss, Karl Krimmler, says the last thing they want is "another snail-darter controversy" standing in the way of developing Toad Island.
• Schlubby, Scummy Security Guard: Jim Tile, suspecting a clue to Skink's current whereabouts, visits the exclusive Ocean Reef Club and is saddled with a "slug-like security guard named Gale, who had apparently failed the knuckle-dragging literacy quiz required to join regular police departments."
• Serious Business: Anti-Hero Twilly Spree initially goes after lobbyist Palmer Stoat, not because of his corrupt activities, but because he's a shameless litterbug.
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Dr. Steven Brinkman, the biologist hired by the construction company building Clapley's resort development, was steered to the private sector by his father - who spent his entire retirement bemoaning his decision to work for the U.S. Forest Service instead of the timber industry when he had the chance - but he honestly believed he could make a difference and find the middle ground between environmental consciousness and ruthless corporate despoilation. Then he learns that his only job is to ensure that there are no endangered species on Toad Island, and all the remaining plant, insect, and animal life on the island can be exterminated without legal challenges from "those goddamn tree-huggers."
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Clinton Tyree/Skink's brother also served in The Vietnam War, and was haunted by his experiences. In his brief time as Governor, Clinton let his brother live out his life in peace in an abandoned lighthouse. Dick Artemus threatens to have him removed from the lighthouse if Skink doesn't hunt down Twilly.
• Small Name, Big Ego:
  • Stoat preens himself as one of the two or three top lobbyists, and thus one of the most powerful and influential men, in the State of Florida. In reality, he's a messenger boy and bagman between Corrupt Corporate Executives and the Corrupt Politicians they own. Since there is never any question of the latter being anything but "whorishly compliant" to the former's wishes, Stoat's self-vaunted skills at deal-making are hardly ever tested. The proposed development of Toad Island into "Shearwater Island" is fairly typical: Clapley donated large sums to Governor Artemus's election campaign, so Artemus sees it as his "job" to make sure Clapley's development gets done; since that's a given, he'll leave it to Stoat to handle the nitty-gritty details. After Stoat's death, business as usual resumes in the state capitol, with not even a ripple marking his passing.
    • Lisa June Peterson reflects:
      In addition to the requisite lack of a conscience, Stoat had been blessed with a monumental ego. He was openly proud of what he did. He considered it prestigious, the fixing of deals.
    • Likewise Skink:
      Twilly: If you had to take out one of them, who would it be? Governor Dickless?
      Skink: Waste of ammo. They got assembly lines that crank out assholes like him. He wouldn't even be missed.
      Twilly: Stoat, then?
      Skink: Maybe, but purely for the entertainment. Tallahassee has more lobbyists than termites.
  • Likewise Dick Artemus, who has no interest in any agenda as governor beyond getting reelected and lining his own pockets, still expects his title and the prestige of his office to impress the people he deals with. His ego gets badly bruised by a short interview with Jim Tile, whose demeanor makes clear that he's seen a dozen chair-warmers like Artemus come and go without making a ripple, and has Artemus pegged as one of these.
    He said it so deadpan that Dick Artemus whipped around, and what Dick Artemus saw in the trooper's expression was worse than distrust or even disliking. It was a bloodless and humiliating indifference.
• Smug Snake: Palmer Stoat, oh so much. It eventually drives his Trophy Wife, Desirata, to distraction, to the point where she tries to sabotage his latest "fix" by tipping off Twilly Spree to it.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: a recurring problem for nearly all of Hiaasen's female protagonists, who are often exceptionally attractive and whose brains, skills and feelings are regarded as at best a lucky bonus and at worst an inconvenience that their male admirers have to deal around; often crossed with Single Woman Seeks Good Man; Desirata "Desie" Stoat's plans to earn a teaching degree in college were derailed by her engagement to a professional basketball player who spoke no English, and after that she had a string of equally vapid fiances, before finally marrying lobbyist Palmer Stoat. While Palmer treats her well materially, she is acutely aware that she is a Trophy Wife and her husband has zero interest in what she thinks or feels.
• Stupid Crooks: On the phone with one of the Swiss bankers financing his development scheme, trying to assuage his concerns, Clapley reflects ruefully that he's much more accustomed to dealing with dope smugglers and gunrunners, which requires a different management style:
  Criminals, to be sure, but much more flexible and pragmatic whenever something went wrong, which was often. The average drug smuggler lived in a world crawling with dopeheads, fuck-offs and screw-ups. Not a day of his life unfolded exactly as planned.
• Swiss Bank Account: Clapley's "first-ever legitimate partners" in his scheme to develop Shearwater Island are a consortium of Swiss bankers. While on the phone with one of them, he reflects ruefully that gunrunners and dope smugglers are much more flexible and pragmatic whenever something goes wrong, which in the criminal world means every single day.
• They Just Don't Get It: Twilly realizes that his chronic need to "impart a lesson" to the steady flow of assholes he encounters has little chance of changing their behavior, but the most he hopes for is that they "get the message. Since Stoat is a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk, his consistent inability to make any connection between Twilly's actions and his own "piggish behavior" drives Twilly insane.
• This Is a Work of Fiction: Hiaasen likes to have fun with this trope.
  This is a work of fiction. All names and characters are either invented or used fictitiously. To the best of the author's knowledge, there is no such licensed product as a Double-Jointed Vampire Barbie, nor is there a cinematic portrayal thereof.
  However, while most events described in this book are imaginary, the dining habits of the common bovine dung beetle are authentically represented.
• This Is Going to Be Huge: At least seven previous attempts have been made to develop the small "Toad Island" on Florida's Gulf Coast, and most of its current population is made up of "casualties from those doomed enterprises" (only one woman hasn’t sold her property by the epilogue, and it is unclear if she is just too greedy or is an environmentalist deliberately asking for too much to deter buyers). The island's unofficial "mayor", Nils Fishback, eagerly invested his life savings to buy 17 vacant lots on the island during the initial hype for the "Towers of Tarpon Island" project, which collapsed as soon as its two principal investors (mid-level Colombian drug kingpins) were arrested and most of their assets on the island seized by the DEA.
• Tongue Trauma: Skink shoots Mr. Gash before the latter can shoot him; the bullet tunnels through Mr. Gash's cheek and cleaves off a good chunk of his tongue, which impairs his speech considerably.
  Mr. Gash: Zhhooo zhhaa off mah fugghy ung!
  Skink: Not bad, sport. You could have been a rap star.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Vecker Darby, the owner of a private waste-disposal firm who flagrantly dumps gallons of toxic, flammable chemicals into the Peace River, is asleep when Twilly - having hot-wired his truck and "borrowed" his Hazmat Suit, retrieves the chemicals and dumps them into his living room. Darby is woken by the toxic fumes and is instantly aware that he needs to get out of the house, but not before stopping in the bathroom to urinate and "out of dull, brainless habit" lighting a cigarette.
  • According to Mr. Gash, one of the "poor bastards" on his The World's Most Bloodcurdling Emergency Calls compilations called 9-1-1 to report that his Doberman Pinscher had locked its jaws around his groin. The dispatcher suggested trying to distract the dog in some way, and the man decided to try dumping a pot of hot coffee on the dog's head.
  • When the elderly African rhinoceros they are stalking suddenly springs to life, Palmer Stoat and Robert Clapley both excitedly take aim. Their guides by contrast, bolt for the nearest tree, while Governor Artemus and Willie Vasquez-Washington beeline for the party's SUV.
    Both men were too adrenalized to recognize their places in the lethal geometry of a crossfire. Both were too caught up in the heart-pounding maleness of the moment to sidestep manifest disaster.
• Tranquil Fury: When Twilly Spree sees a woman repeatedly littering on the highway, Desirata Stoat sees the muscles in his arms and neck corded tight, but only "gelid calm" in his eyes, which scares the hell out of her.
• Twofer Token Minority: Exploited by Representative Willie Vasquez-Washington (sometimes called "The Rainbow Brother" behind his back) who represents a minority district and at various times has claimed Afro-American, Hispanic, Haitian, Chinese and Miccousukee Indian heritage.
• Uncertain Doom: Several of the people in the 911 calls Gash listens to (someone hiding during a workplace shooting, and a girl trying to summon the police before one of her brothers kills her and their other brother) have their final fates unrevealed but are in pretty precarious situations.
• Undignified Death: Clapley (gored to death on the horn of the rhino he was expecting to present as a trophy to his girlfriends) and Stoat (trampled to death by said rhino).
• Unmourned Death: Played With. Palmer Stoat's funeral is attended by his widow Desie, her parents, and Palmer's only cousin, "a defrocked podiatrist from Jacksonville." The only other mourners are Stoat's casual acquaintances: a bartender from his favorite cigar bar, a prostitute, and a host of state legislators. Governor Artemus and Representative Vasquez-Washington send their regrets instead of showing up themselves.
  Desie... found herself weeping tears of true, aching sadness - not over the eulogies (which were largely fiction), but over the unraveling of her own feelings about her husband, and how that had contributed to his untimely death.... So she was feeling guilt, and grief, too, because while she kept no romantic love for Palmer, she also kept no hate. He was what he was, and it wasn't all rotten or she wouldn't have married him.
• Unscrupulous Hero: Both Twilly and Skink have good intentions, but can go well over the top in execution.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Boodle/McGuinn, like all Labrador Retrievers is "born for fun" and blessed with an extremely short attention span. The climax of the novel erupts when he playfully nips at a half-asleep rhino's tail.
• Villain with Good Publicity: A fair amount of the Corrupt Politician's, Corrupt Corporate Executives and the like.
• Waxing Lyrical: To Desirata, one of her husband's "most annoying habits" is his "clever" tic of inserting the lyrics of rock songs into everyday conversation, which wouldn't be so annoying if he ever got the words right, which he never does. Among the artists whose work he mangles are:
  • The Beatles: "I read the newspaper today, oh boy", "I'm having a tough day's night", "He's a no-place man", and "Happiness is a hot gun."
  • The Doors: "Come on baby, light my candle."
  • Jethro Tull: "You're thick as a stick."
  • The Rolling Stones: "Blond sugar" and "You can't always do who you want."
  • The Beach Boys: "Wouldn't It Be Great."
• We Care:
  • Before Twilly finds out about Robert Clapley's Toad Island development scheme, the only obstacle to said scheme is the small number of residents who masquerade as environmentalists as a public relations stunt to extort higher buyout prices for their landholdings from Clapley.
  • They withdraw their petition after Clapley makes a legal pledge to replant a new tree for every one that gets cut down during the development. Nothing in the pledge says the trees have to be planted on Toad Island itself, and it happens that Clapley owns a tract of recently-cleared timberland in Putnam County that needs to be replanted anyway, so...
  • Governor Richard Artemus enjoys dining on sauteed baby lobsters, which are illegal in Florida and so confiscated from poachers and shipped by helicopter to Tallahassee. If anyone objects, the cover story is that the lobsters are being donated to a local orphanage. If Artemus is forced to miss dinner because of a prior engagement, the donation actually occurs.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: A staple of Hiaasen's novels.
• With Great Power Comes Great Opposition: the sad story of Clinton "Skink" Tyree's brief governorship of Florida in The '70s. After he turned down his first bribe offer, and had the offenders arrested by the FBI, every special interest in the state pooled their resources to bribe super-majorities in the legislature and the cabinet to reject, gut or simply ignore every bill he wanted passed. He eventually came apart when he realized that his crusade to clean up corruption in the state and protect it from over-development was literally "one-man". Even after leaving office and reinventing himself as a reclusive eco-warrior, he is under no illusions about his ability to change things for the better.
• Women Are Wiser: Lisa June Peterson, the governor’s executive assistant, was initially hired for her looks, but her "unexpected and dazzling competency" quickly advanced her to being the governor's right hand. She is well aware that the governor, and most or all of the men who hold power in the state government, are corrupt, womanizing alcoholics, but she chooses to see the positive side:
  Rather than being dispirited by their aggregate sliminess, Lisa June Peterson found in it a cause for hope. She could run circles around these lecherous, easily-distracted clowns, and in time she would.
• Would Not Hit a Girl: Seeing a quartet of college kids (two boys and two girls) attack a helpless pelican from speeding Jetskis, Twilly Spree breaks the boys' jaws, but leaves the girls alone (though he warns them in the strongest terms not to come back to Florida).
• You Keep Using That Word: One of Palmer Stoat's most annoying habits is repeatedly attempting to wax lyrical but always getting the lyrics wrong. What makes it twice as annoying is that several people, including his wife and Bob Clapley, call him out on his mistakes, but he never takes the hint.