Very humorous story involving a theme park in Florida. And a dolphin. Interestingly, no one had dead animals clamped to their arm in this one...
QUOTE:
Four thousand poinds of ugly Detroit steel on his toes and not even a twinge of pain. Incredible, Pedro thought; the ultimate result of supreme physical conditioning! Or possibly the drugs.
Mallory runs away from home, her friend Richard meets Skink and they team up to find her. A "teen"-downed story, pretty good, a little slow near the end, good ending, though.
Untalented pop star Cherry Pye falls to revive a faltering career. No one loses a limb to a Floridian animal in THIS book, although one guy gets shot in the butt.
"Funny as hell.", "Hilarious..." say the blurbs. I was roused to laughter only five times. On pages 170, 287, 260, 364 and 414 of the paperback edition. Never the less, it was entertaining so I am going to try his other books.
QUOTE:
"This is a classy operation,... didn't you notice the napkins?"
BONUS QUOTE:
...Shad...was... reading a large-print edition of The Plague by Albert Camus. The book made Shad feel slightly better about living in South Florida.
Hector swears revenge on the man with one eye (and a big nose) who blackmails his father, causing him to die of a heart attack. Very good, now I have to read the rest of the related books!
I could only find this book in a collection "Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950s". It was so ungodly LONG that I'm entering as a separate entry! Since the collection contained four other NOVELS, one can assume the print was rather tiny. It was. I didn't much care for this book, and do not intend to read any others in the Ripliad. There were 340-odd pages of, did I mention it, TINY, print? I didn't feel any sympathy for any of the characters. About eight pages from the end, just before Ripley boards the Hellenes, he mentions THREE murders. I only remember two. I'm sure I just missed the point of the sentence. Hadas recommended this book. I don't hold it against her, though, it just didn't work for me.
Words I Had To Look Up:
celeri remoulade -- a type of salad. (op cit, pg. 175)
faute de mieux -- for lack of something better. (ibid, pg 202)
Joe Leaphorn investigates a rug that was supposed to have been burned a few years ago. Good story. I WAS confused when the gift box of cherries made their appearance on page 199. I cannot find any reference to it before that, and I LOOKED!!