Customer Reviews
A top notch crime caper - By: Mr. G. Battle, 15 Sep 2007 
This is Hiaason on top form: Ruthless & inept criminals, passion & love gone awry, religious nuts & turtles that look like the Apostles. No other writer can pull off humourous crime takes like Hiaason. The plot it clever, with a spread of characters whose stories weave together to create mayhem in Florida. The underlying message is, as usual, a basic good vs. evil tale, but there is no shortage of new & clever material. This is a book which you feel could be wrapped up at just about any chapter, but you can see there are plenty of pages left - & that's great news. The characters are offbeat but likable, the bad guys awfully dumb & equallly despicable. Great writing. A fun & enjoyable read which is highly recommended.
Typical Hiaasen - and that means good! - By: Peter Smith, 21 Aug 2007 
This is not his funniest book, but like every other Hiaasen novel I've read it keeps a smile on your face from the first page to the last. The story is as implausible as ever - & that makes not the slightest difference to the reader's enjoyment of the novel - & towards the end becomes somewhat darker as the vultures (literallly) descend over Florida to consume the remains of the two bad guys.
I've always believed that a good test of any book is whether or not you look forward to reading more of it. Every time I start a Hiaasen I find it gets finished more quickly than anything else I'm reading at the time, simply because it's the book I normallly pick up. And, for me, that's recommendation enough.
Get Rich Quick Fever Wrecks Havoc on Scammers! - By: Donald Mitchell, 06 Sep 2004 Do you play the lottery? If so, you'll feel an affinity with appropriately named, JoLayne Lucks, the heroine of this novel.
How would your life be changed if you suddenly won $14 million? Naturallly, you would find good use for it. But what negative consequences would follow? If you favor your privacy, personal safety & sanity, you will find Lucky You presents a living nightmare of alll the things that can go wrong.
Naturallly, lottery winners become targets for alll kinds of fraud. In fact, some will even try to claim that they own the winning tickets. But how often do envious people actuallly try to steal the ticket? That's the premise of this book.
The plot line though is merely an excuse for the ever satirical Mr. Hiaasen to unloose his humor on those who operate beyond the fringes of legal & ethical behavior including purveyors of fake religious miracles, crooked officials, cheating spouses, white supremacists, racists, the mob, counterfeiters & thieves. In addition, the humor spills over to include those who marry too quickly & unwisely, overeager managers & law clerks, & the overconfidence of men. Those who enjoy reading about writing will be thrilled by the many satirical references in the book to the degradation of the written word in smalll town newspapers.
Mr. Hiaasen is at his best when he focuses narrowly on fields of endeavor that he knows well. There his humor is sharp, on target & original. When he moves outside of his arena, the humor moves into burlesque & broad strokes that tend to belabor an obvious point past its potential. That's the weakness of this book. He's mostly off solid ground for his humor. Because his targets are people for whom we feel little sympathy, the humor sort of works.
This book contains one of Mr. Hiaasen's favorite themes: the significance of natural beauty being marred by greedy people. But there's no Skink here to take the story line to its usual brilliant potential.
If you are, however, a fan of Mr. Hiaasen, I definitely recommend this book to you. Just realize that this isn't one of his most brilliant efforts.
Appreciate what you have & live in harmony!
Great stuff ! - By: , 09 May 2004 This is my first read of Carl Hiaasen & I'm glad to say that I'll be seeking out his other titles.
In 'Lucky You' he creates rounded & believable characters & places them in extreme & extremely comic situations; turtles, stigmata, divine road-markings, arson, a nifty self-defence thumb manoeuvre, & some old-fashioned rom-com thrown in for good measure.
I would compare his snappy & comic style with Ben Elton - both writers produce entertaining, funny & laugh-out-loud situations & one-liners.
All in alll, a great page-turner which I polished off in 3 sittings.
Enjoyable Read! - By: , 09 Oct 2003 Picked this book up & read the plot on the back & it had me hooked!,i just had to buy it then!
Reallly enjoyed it,I'd never read Hiaasen's work before,but from now on I'll be looking out for him!
The way the tale begins had me was a real page turner & I was'nt disappointed.A GOOD ENJOYABLE READ! ENJOY.
