Razor Girl

Hiaasen’s woozily funny mix of Florida mayhem, murder, and mirth brings back Andrew Yancy, goofball hero of 2013’s Bad Monkey, who’s still trying to solve a crime high profile enough to catapult him from inspecting restaurants in Key West to his old job as detective with the Monroe County sheriff’s department. The characters he meets are as wacky and wildly hilarious as on his last escapade, but this time Hiaasen’s sharply satiric arrows are aimed not only at environment-destroying greed-heads but grotesques from the world of show biz. And actor Rubinstein has a grand old time providing voices for all. There are the two kidnap victims: Hollywood talent agent Lane Coolman—when he speaks, you can almost see the perspiration on his upper lip—and his gruff, mainly inebriated, loose cannon client, Buck Nance, the star of the top-rated Bayou Brethren TV show. The kidnapper, Benny the Blister, is a growling, snarling genuine redneck of the homicidal variety, who’s angling for a featured role on the series. They are accompanied by an assortment of Key West denizens, Buck’s fellow thespians, Lane Coolman’s sleazy associates, assorted lawyers, also sleazy, and a few banana-loving giant Gambian rats. Except for the rats, who have no dialogue, Rubinstein manages to find the perfect interpretation for each. A Knopf hardcover. (Sept.)