Ra-Ra Florida!

I'm just reading Carl Hiassen's latest book, Bad Monkey.
A full report later. It continues his tradition of showing the underbelly of life in the Sunshine State, though interestingly there's more focus on a romantic relationship this time, and less concern with describing the antics of comic heavies.

 Coincidentally, the field of crime writing in Florida is covered in Adam Gopnik's article in The New Yorker magazine this month. Every two years, when Hiassen releases a new book, we get a plethora of articles about his work, or the work of his colleagues. But I'm not complaining, because Lawrence Shames, James Hall, Tim Dorsey and Charles Willeford are among my favourite crime writers, so the more there is to read about them, the better.

Apart from Miami Blues, from Willeford's book, though I'm struggling to think of a good film made from one of these books. There was an awful film of Hiassen's Striptease, but surely someone could make a film of one of James Hall's Thorn books - they're exciting, deal with real relationships, have something to say about the rape of the environment and have a great leading role for a tough-looking but relatively placid actor. Someone like Mathew McConaghey, perhaps, or even Ryan Reynolds. They'd have to grow long hair, though.

I think there have been films from a couple of Elmore Leonard's books, but nothing substantial.

In other news, Actress is starting to sell some copies. The price is currently reduced to $0.99 till the end of the month, so this is the time to buy! Click here for the Amazon.com Kindle version.