He claimed that Angie had sought out the reptile, into whose gaping maw she’d inserted Pruitt’s left fist, the one that had been holding his knife. Angie eventually resigned, pleading guilty to one felony count of aggravated assault and one misdemeanor charge of illegally feeding wildlife. [loc. 72]
This is a fascinating dystopia, set after the Covid pandemic but during the second term of a US President (referred to only by his Secret Service codename, Mastodon) who plays a lot of golf, likes junk food, hates immigrants, and refuses to believe in climate change. Obviously this character is wholly fictitious, as is his wife, the fragrant First Lady, whose codename is Mockingbird.
The mansions and hotels of Palm Beach are engaged in a cutthroat competition for the honour of hosting charity galas and political events. One venue, Lipid House, loses a lot of points when a wealthy socialite (and supporter of the President) goes missing. The searchers don't find her -- but they do find an enormous python lurking in the grounds. Wildlife wrangler Angie Armstrong is called in to deal with the reptile, and cannot fail to notice a huge bulge in its midriff. Cue shenanigans, inept criminals, mislaid corpses human and otherwise, a torrid affair between Mockingbird and her Secret Service minder, and the intervention of the eco-activist Skink, familiar to Hiaasen fans from a number of other works.
There is far too much plot for me to summarise here: enough to say that Squeeze Me is one of the better Hiaasen novels, with an excellent heroine (Angie does not play nice with climate-change deniers) and some dark satire. The President exhibits an irrational hatred of 'foreigners', and blames a hapless migrant for the socialite's death, condemning the man to imprisonment and abuse. (One Secret Service minion wonders if the President might have been mistaken. “Don’t you get it? It doesn’t fucking matter whether he’s right or not. That’s the scary part.” [loc. 2148]). While this felt a little too close to the bone for Hiaasen's usual breezy humour, I was vastly amused by the depiction of POTUS-supporting ladies who lunch, and by the various hapless petty criminals and low-lifes who feature herein. Great fun, though it made me nostalgic for Floridian beach bars, long drives, nature, and ... ah yes, life without lockdowns.
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