Basket Case by Carl Hiaasen

Read: 10 July, 2007

Jack Tagger's career as a reported was destroyed when he criticized his new boss. He now writes the obituaries - a job he was assigned in the hopes that he would give up and quit. But Jack isn't quite ready to give up yet. He waits for the day that someone famous dies in his territory so that he can write the obituary that would save his career. When Jimmy Stoma of the Slut Puppies dies under mysterious circumstances, Jack believes this time has come. He must fight his editor and discover the secret to Jimmy's death, a search that leads Jack into the very bowels of the music industry.

With all this talk of once great reporters reduced to anonymity by an oppressive newspaper structure, I begin to wonder if Hiaasen isn't verging on the autobiographical. When a theme is repeated in two or more of an author's works, I begin to question just how fictional that theme may be. Similarly, the "baddie" characters are again killed (in similarly gruesome fashion). Now, in this case there doesn't seem to have been much of a peaceful solution (though the characters never propose simply going to the police). Even so, a normal (non-psychopathic) individual might still feel a little guilty for what happened. Not these characters, though! So what is it about Hiaasen that compels him to write about such brutality with total lack of feeling? Finding this in one novel was unnerving. Finding it in two is downright scary.

Other than that, however, the novel was fantastic. Again, I adored the writing style and the humor. The references to Neil Young and other musicians I rightfully should not have heard of at my tender age prejudiced me in favor of the story. The jokes about modern pop music sealed the deal, so to speak.