Carl Hiaasen: Skin Tight (UK 2024)

From the Publisher:
Bestselling author Carl Hiaasen serves up a humorous helping of 'taut, fast-paced action... crisp and hot' (The New York Times).
After dispatching a pistol-packing intruder from his home with the help of a stuffed Marlin head, Mick Stranahan can't deny that someone is out to get him.

His now-deceased intruder carries no ID, and as a former Florida state investigator, Stranahan knows there are plenty of potential culprits. His long list of enemies includes an off-point hitman, a personal injury lawyer of billboard fame, a notoriously irritating TV journalist, and a fumbling plastic surgeon.

Now, if he wants to keep fishing into his golden years, Stranahan has no choice but to come out of retirement to close this one last case...

Carl Hiaasen: Skin Tight. Sphere, ISBN: 9781408731246 (July, 2024), 416 p., £10.99, eBook £5.99.

Carl Hiaasen: Skin Tight (USA 2010)

From the Publisher:
New York Times bestselling author Carl Hiaasen serves up a humorous helping of "taut, fast-paced action... crisp and hot"
After dispatching a pistol-packing intruder from his home with the help of a stuffed Marlin head, Mick Stranahan can't deny that someone is out to get him. His now-deceased intruder carries no I.D., and as a former Florida state investigator, Stranahan knows there are plenty of potential culprits. His long list of enemies includes an off point hit man, a personal injury lawyer of billboard fame, a notoriously irritating TV journalist, and a fumbling plastic surgeon.

Now, if he wants to keep fishing into his golden years, Stranahan has no choice but to come out of retirement to close this one last case...

Carl Hiaasen: Skin Tight. Berkley Books, ISBN: 9780425233498 (January, 2010), 410 p., $14.00.

Carl Hiaasen: Skin Tight (USA 2005)

From the Publisher:
Somebody wants Mick Stranahan dead. Mick is sure of this, because he just had to dispatch a pistol-packing intruder with the help of a stuffed marlin head. But who would want to hurt a former Florida state investigator? The answer is plenty of people - as Stranahan soon finds himself acquainted with a litter of nefarious players, including a hit man whose skin problems could fill a comprehensive (if bizarre) medical textbook, a lawyer of questionable repute who advertises on billboards, and a TV show host whose taste for sensationalism is exceeded only by his vanity. The whole thing gets downright harrowing for the ex-cop in one of Hiaasen's most breathtaking, madcap romps ever - where even a plastic surgeon with extremely shaky hands waits to wring Stranahan's neck...

Carl Hiaasen: Skin Tight. Grand Central Publishing, ISBN: 0446695696 (April, 2005), 420 p., $13.99.

Carl Hiaasen: Skin Tight (USA 2001)

From the Publisher:
Somebody wants Mick Stranahan dead. Mick is sure of this, because he just had to dispatch a pistol-packing intruder with the help of a stuffed marlin head. But who would want to hurt a former Florida state investigator? The answer is plenty of people - as Stranahan soon finds himself acquainted with a litter of nefarious players, including a hit man whose skin problems could fill a comprehensive (if bizarre) medical textbook, a lawyer of questionable repute who advertises on billboards, and a TV show host whose taste for sensationalism is exceeded only by his vanity. The whole thing gets downright harrowing for the ex-cop in one of Hiaasen's most breathtaking, madcap romps ever - where even a plastic surgeon with extremely shaky hands waits to wring Stranahan's neck...

Carl Hiaasen: Skin Tight. Warner Books, ISBN: 0446611514 (December, 2001), 373 p., $7.99.

Carl Hiaasen: Skin Tight (UK 1999)

From the Publisher:
In his attempt to lead a quiet life, ex-investigator Mick Stranaham doesn't expect to have a Mafia hit-man come knocking on his door. He disposes of him promptly with a stuffed marlin head. On closer inspection he notices that the man has recently undergone plastic surgery.

Carl Hiaasen: Skin Tight. Pan Books, ISBN: 0330314203 (May, 1999), 379 p., £5.99 (?).

Carl Hiaasen: Skin Tight (UK 1991)

From the Publisher:
In his attempt to lead a quiet life, ex-investigator Mick Stranaham doesn't expect to have a Mafia hit-man come knocking on his door. He disposes of him promptly with a stuffed marlin head. On closer inspection he notices that the man has recently undergone plastic surgery.

Carl Hiaasen: Skin Tight. Pan Books, ISBN: 0330314203 (September, 1991), 379 p., £4.99.

Carl Hiaasen: Skin Tight (USA 1990)

From the Publisher:
Somebody wants Mick Stranahan dead. Mick is sure of this, because he has just had to spear an intruder with a stuffed marlin head and deposit the body in Biscayne Bay. But who would want to hurt a forty-two-year-old former Florida state investigator?

Plenty of people. Like the plastic surgeon with the extremely shaky hands. Or the lawyer who advertises his services with billboards that read, "If you've had an accident, somebody somewhere owes you money!!!" Then there's the host of TV's In Your Face, whose taste for sensationalism is exceeded only by his vanity, and the hit man whose skin problems could fill a comprehensive (if bizarre) medical textbook.

The whole thing is downright harrowing. It's Hiaasen at his best. And his best is very, very good.

Carl Hiaasen: Skin Tight. Fawcett Books, ISBN: 0449219410 (October, 1990), 373 p., $5.95.

Carl Hiaasen: Skin Tight (USA 1989)

From the Publisher:
A remarkable new novel from the author of Tourist Season and Double Whammy. Carl Hiaasen's wildly imaginative thrillers have excited readers everywhere: "Carl Hiaasen writes like Elmore Leonard on nitrous oxide" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution); "Hiaasen is right up there with Ross Thomas and Donald Westlake" (The Washington Post); "Hiaasen's writing is like getting a whiff from a suddenly uncorked bottle of ether" (Chicago Tribune); "a remarkable example of what talented writers are doing with the mystery novel" (The New York Times Book Review).

Now comes Skin Tight, and the results are more ferociously suspenseful and funny than ever. Mick Stranahan, a forty-two-year-old former Florida state investigator, is minding his own business in the old stilt house he inhabits in Biscayne Bay, when a man turns up to kill him. He doesn't succeed -- Mick spears him with a stuffed marlin head -- but as he heaves the body into the bay, Mick tries to figure out who wants him dead, and why. He considers this a priority.

Search leads him back to a four-year-old unresolved kidnapping, and from there to an unscrupulous plastic surgeon whose fame is great and whose hand is shaky; a personal-injury lawyer whose beaming billboard face proclaims, "If you've had an accident, somebody somewhere owes you money"; an inordinately vain television journalist named Reynaldo Flemm, star of the highly rated In Your Face; a six-foot-nine hit man called Chemo with skin like Rice Krispies; and a spectacular gamut of corrupt politicians, cops, judges -- and a few decent folks as well. Not to mention the barracuda. Together, they propel Stranahan to an adventure both harrowing and hilarious, in a story that is at once deliriously inventive and a sobering look at the rising tide of sleaze all about us. It is a wicked, wonder- ful, uproarious book -- the work of a singularly talented writer.

"To read Hiaasen is to realize the joy of discovering a writer. He brings to mind at least a dozen gifted writers, including Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Joseph Heller, Evelyn Waugh, Tom Robbins, John D. MacDonald, Elmore Leonard and Terry Southern." -- The Tennessean

Carl Hiaasen: Skin Tight. Putnam, ISBN: 0399134891 (September, 1989), 319 p., $18.95.