A new Carl Hiaasen is always a subject for rejoicing, and in Sick Puppy he once again delivers his usual mixture of anarchic humour, in-your-face satire and bizarre violence. Set as always in Florida and dealing with the despoliation of that State by greedy entrepreneurs and unscrupulous politicians, the plot revolves around the efforts of one Twilly Spree to prevent the transmogrification of a pristine Gulf Coast island into a modern, neon-lit mall.
Spree is a typical Hiaasen hero: idealistic, independently wealthy and pathologically short-tempered, he has dedicated himself to preserving Florida's natural beauty from runaway destruction at the hands of money-mad philistines. His main enemy is Robert Clapley, a wealthy ex-drug runner, who has bribed the present Governor of the State to allow him to turn unspoiled Toad Island into yet another trashy monument to sybaritic pleasure. When such a cast of maniacs - both the good guys and the bad guys - is unleashed, bedlam is bound to ensue. And so it comes to pass: murder, mayhem and madness are only the half of it, as our author's iconoclastic imagination conjures up more and more outrageous set-pieces, culminating in a climax that features a death-dealing rhinoceros among its definitive effects. This has to be black humour at its most sombre.
Dust to Dust, by Tami Hoag (Orion, £16.99 in UK)
With Dust to Dust Tami Hoag has come of age as a crime writer of the first rank. Up to this she has hovered on the periphery, but this tale of dirty deeds in the Minneapolis Police Department sets her among the leaders of the pack. Plot, scene-setting, locale and especially dialogue are all perfectly executed, while the pace of what is quite a large novel never falters. Hero and heroine are Sergeants Sam Kovac and his partner, Tinks Liska, of the already mentioned Minneapolis PD, and in their relationship Ms Hoag catches exactly the knife-edge jokiness of what is basically a very dirty job indeed.
Pressure is on from the top brass to close the case as quickly as possible, but Kovac is an old-style cop who believes in ferreting out the truth, no matter what the cost. The deeper he digs, the more suspicious he becomes, until finally, with the help of his partner and in spite of the difficulties placed in his path by his fellow officers, he uncovers a festering nest of bizarre conspiracy.
Undercurrents, by Frances Fyfield (Little, Brown & Co, £9.99 in UK)
While Tami Hoag represents the American style of crime fiction, Frances Fyfield holds her own in the traditional English version of the psychological suspense thriller. Her latest is Undercurrents, which tells the story of how American Henry Evans fell hopelessly in love with English Francesca Chisholm while they were both back-packing in India, and lost her when they went their separate ways. Some 20 years later, he has come to the coastal town of Warbling in order to find her again. To his dismay, he discovers that she is in prison for drowning her five-year-old son. Of course he stays to find out the truth, in the process uncovering a fine nest of worms. Ms Fyfield is an expert at throwing light on the darkness that sometimes lodges in the human heart and the wickedness it can breed, and Undercurrents shows her at her most perspicacious. Highly recommended.
Balance of Power, by Paul Palmer (Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99 in UK)
This novel deals with the attempts of a disgraced President of the United States's wife to assume power and get herself elected to the highest office in the land. Remind you of anyone? This is not a novel of politics, however, but a pacey thriller where the cast of characters is made up of stereotypes whose only function is to fast-track the plot along. The prose style is also of the most basic, being cliched and laboured in the extreme. In spite of all that, the book is a page-turner, the storyline throwing up surprise after surprise as it gallops along towards a predictable yet still satisfying climax. Good holiday reading, if you can still afford to be in the holiday mood.
Shattered, by Dick Francis (Michael Joseph, £16.99 in UK)
And who is that I see also galloping down the straight on the usual reliable old nag? Why, yes it is, it's Dick Francis, breasting the winning post on his 38th winner, Shattered. What can one say except that the subject is chicanery among the horse racing fraternity, the prose style is as cosy as Ireland's Own, the characters as stolid as a bowler hat, and the dedication is to the Queen Mother, on the advent of her 100th birthday. Oh to be in England now that Dick is there . . . !
Michael Painter is a writer and critic