Lucky You
by Carl Hiaasen

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Book Reviews of Lucky You

Book Review: A Nice intro to Hiaasen
Summary: 5 Stars

Lucky You is the first novel by Hiaasen that I have read. Unlike the majority of Leonard's novels, Lucky You seems to follow the more traditional approach to novel writing. Hiaasen tends to tie up loose ends and answer more questions at the end of Lucky You than Leonard, who tends to leave things hanging after he has hit the "punch line" of his novels. That being said, I enjoy the work of both writers immensely.

Lucky You tells the story of Tom Krome, a newspaper columnist, that can't get his wife to divorce him. It is also the story of JoLayne Lucks, who has won half of the $28 million Florida State Lottery. The problem is, the winners of the other half are a pair of red-neck thugs that want to start their own militia. They can't stomach the thought of sharing the winnings with a black woman, and steal her ticket from her. After being assigned to write a story on JoLayne, Krome gets caught up in helping her retrieve her ticket, while at the same time evading the wrath of a judge, whose wife Krome had an affair with. Add a kidnapping of a blond waitress from Hooters that one of the milita members has a crush on, and the story takes off on several entertaining plot lines.

Some of the best humor in the novel comes from the ineptness of the wannabe militia men. Bo Gazer, the brains of the militia, has concocted theory after theory as to how the United States Government has fallen into the hands of Jews, Blacks, and homosexuals, bent on the fall of the Christian White Man. The deliberate absurdness of the theories, which include a consipiracy in which the United Nations will conquer America from the Bahamas, and his partners reaction is some of the most entertaining bickering I have read in a long time.

In addition to the satire of militias, Hiaasen hits religious zealots over the head with jokes and parodies. Road stains images of Jesus, crying statues of the Virgin Mother, and image of the disciples on turtle shells attract 'pilgrims' from far and wide to the city of Grange (JoLayne's home town). The owner of each attraction diligently stakes out their territory in an attempt to secure the largest chunk of the donations shelled out by the pilgrims. Hiaasen treats these practices with about as much absurdity as he does the militia.

By the end of the novel, the various plot lines reach their satisfactory conclusions. You feel happy for the good guys, and content that the bad guys got what they deserved, and there isn't much of a question as to who was who (unlike many Leonard novels). Lucky You is a great "crime" adventure with plenty of laughs, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the crime fiction genre.

Summary of Lucky You

Action & Adventure Books

• Subjects > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Action & Adventure
• Comic
• Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers