Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 15, 1993 TAG: 9309240347
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO BOOK PAGE EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
By Michael Connelly. Little, Brown. $19.95.By Carl Hiaasen. Knopf. $21.
\ Strip Tease.
By Carl Hiaasen. Knopf $21.
Here are two crime novels by big city reporters. In tone, style and intent they could hardly be more different, but each, in its own way, is excellent.
``The Black Ice'' is Los Angeles Times reporter Michael Connelly's follow-up to the Edgar-winning ``The Black Echo.'' Like the first novel, its protagonist is LAPD Det. Harry Bosch, but Connelly is up to something different here.
The story begins with the discovery of a fellow detective's body in a motel room. Calexico Moore was in narcotics and had been under investigation by the Internal Affairs division. Everything points to suicide, but Bosche's superiors are in such a rush to close the matter that he becomes suspicious. First there's the enigmatic suicide note: ``I found out who I was.'' Then when Bosch finds connections to Moore in other open cases, including a Mexican laborer murdered under extremely strange circumstances, he knows that something is going on.
All of the leads point to a drug ring that operates on the Mexico-California border. Finally, Harry is forced to go there, despite the objections of his bosses and the reported unreliability of the Mexican cops who may be working for the very man Harry is trying to find.
All right, that could be the beginning of any number of contemporary West Coast mysteries, but early on, Connelly lets the reader know that he's also paying his respects to Raymond Chandler. First there are quotes from ``The Long Goodbye'' and later, this meditation on Los Angeles:
``There was a random feel to the dark, the quirkiness of chance played out in the blue neon night. So many ways to live. And to die. You could be riding in the back of a studio's black limo, or just as easily in the back of the coroner's blue van. The sound of applause was the same as the buzz of a bullet spinning past your ear in the dark. The randomness. That was L.A.
``There was flash fire and flash flood, earthquake, mudslide. There was the drive-by shooter and the crack-stoked burglar. The drunk driver and the always curving road ahead. There were killer cops and cop killers. There was the husband of the woman you were sleeping with. And there was the woman. At any moment on any night there were people being raped, violated, maimed. Murdered and loved. There was always a baby at his mother's breast. And, sometimes, a baby alone in a dumpster.''
The unusual combination of homage and contemporary suspense fiction works well. All in all, this is just a fine novel, a strong entry in what is likely to become an important series.
Carl Hiaasen, a reporter for the Miami Herald, takes a lighter approach to murder and political corruption in ``Strip Tease.'' As the disclaimer states, ``This is a work of fiction. All names and characters are either invented or used fictitiously. The events described are purely imaginary, although the accounts of topless creamed-corn wrestling are based on fact.''
The novel begins when David Dilbeck, a congressman, gets drunk at a strip joint and attacks one of the patrons. That sort of thing has happened before, and Dilbeck has a staff, including fixer Malcolm ``Moldy'' Moldowsky, who can handle these unfortunate excesses. But this time, somebody recognized the congressman, and there may be photographs, too. Even that little slip might not be so bad, but Dilbeck is up for re-election and he's needed for a key vote on agricultural subsidies that could mean millions for the sugar industry which has the congressman firmly in its pocket.
Erin Grant, the stripper involved, is the novel's heroine. She wants custody of her daughter who was awarded to her ex-husband - a speed freak, convicted thief and police informer - because a born-again judge thinks that stripping is immoral. Her desire to get her child back sets in motion a wildly complex plot so twisted, improbable and funny that it could almost be true.
Hiaasen has created a cast as bizarre and vivid as the Sunshine State itself; from Shad, the bouncer who's looking for the product liability suit that'll put him on Easy Street, to Erin's sister-in-law, Rita, who's raising wolf-dogs in the back yard to Dilbeck whose sexual proclivities include (but are not limited to) wearing cowboy boots filled with Vaseline warmed in the microwave.
So many of the details of people and politics ring true that Hiaasen's humor has a dark edge to it. But ``Strip Tease'' isn't a polemic. It's a wild ride of a novel, the funniest thing to come out of Florida since Dave Barry.
by CNB