The Case Basket , published in 2002, is the ninth novel by Carl Hiaasen. This is a classic Hiaasen criminal novel, made in Florida, and centered on the death of singer James Stomarti (aka Jimmy Stoma), a former man dressed in "Jimmy and the Slut Puppies". This novel marks the first time Hiaasen used the point of view of the first person to deliver the novel. In his earlier works, he used the views of third persons.
In addition to being a murder mystery, the novel is also an honest exploration of the pros and cons of career in newspaper journalism, and the passionate screed against the downsizing of American newspapers and their company's emphasis on profitability in depth. This theme was tentatively introduced in the novel Hiaasen Lucky You but is fully explored here.
Video Basket Case (novel)
Description of the title of the novel
The book is named for Jimmy Stoma's fictional hit song. While writing the book, Hiaasen collaborated with singer-songwriter Warren Zevon, an old friend. The song appeared as the second song on 2002's Zevon My Ride's Here album. It's quoted several times throughout the book, and printed in its entirety at the end (credited to Jimmy Stoma and Warren Zevon).
Maps Basket Case (novel)
Plot summary
Jack Tagger, 46, is an obituary writer for Union-Register (fictitious South Florida newspaper). He became excited at the death notice for James Bradley Stomarti a.k.a. Jimmy Stoma, lead man of rock band Jimmy and Slut Puppies.
Jack interviewed Jimmy's widow, pop singer Cleo Rio (her stage name came from a rumor that she winked the area of ​​her cock in one of her music videos), saying that Jimmy died in a diving accident in the Bahamas. Cleo also put up her upcoming new album, titled song written by Jimmy and herself.
But after the news of the death was printed, Jimmy's sister Janet told him Cleo lied: Jimmy was working on his own comeback album. Jack gets more and more suspicious when he visits Jimmy's corpse at the funeral home and discovers that no autopsy is done on his body. However, before Jack can summon for official autopsy, Jimmy's body is cremated.
Jack had been an investigative reporter, but was relegated to an obituary beat after insulting Ras Maggad III, the CEO of the newspaper publishing company. His ambition is to climb back to the front page by "pulling my byline onto some famous stiff." He tried to convince his editor, Emma who "could not possibly" let him investigate Jimmy's death, but he refused.
Jack's current job had sacrificed his life; writing an obituary all day, he has become a death obsession with death, especially his own. Every year, Jack is obsessed with dead people at his age, and about the fate of his deceased father, who disappears when Jack is young. This obsession made her lose her favorite boyfriend, Anne.
Parked outside Cleo's condo one night, Jack spotted him with a young man, an obvious sex partner.
Emma relents and gives Jack a week to investigate Jimmy's death. Jack tracks down Jay Burns, the old keyboardist Slut Puppies, and Jimmy's dive partner. Jay was stoned, but to Jack he was obviously lying about something. That night, a thief broke into Jack's apartment. Jack attacked him with a frozen corpse from a dead Savannah monitor lizard he kept in his freezer. Jack was beaten to death, but the thief disappeared. A few hours later, two police detectives showed up and told him Jay Burns had been found murdered.
Her apartment was ruined, Jack went to live with Emma. They decide to find a boat where he interviews Jay. After searching carefully, they found an external hard drive hidden inside the bottom of the scuba tank.
Jack is pressured to hear from his friend Carla Candilla, Anne's teenage daughter, that Anne will marry again - even worse, to a writer of a hacking spy novel. Met at a club, he sees Cleo's girlfriend, a man who calls himself "Loreal" and claims to be the record producer.
Jack and Emma startled when Janet disappeared from her home. Jack found a small patch of blood on his carpet.
With the help of Jack's best friend, sports writer Juan Rodriguez, Jack decrypts his hard drive and finds it contains a master record for Jimmy's new unfinished album. Listening to him, Jack is still confused looking for the motive of Jimmy's murder, if he's killed. The cruel fact is, for most of the music industry, Jimmy is an existing one.
To Jack's surprise, Emma spends the night with her in her apartment. A few days later, he excitedly told him that another former Puppy Slut, Tito Negroponte, was shot but not killed in Los Angeles. Jack flies to California and interviews the bass player, who puts his finger on why Cleo killed Jimmy: he wanted a song from his album, "Shipwrecked Heart" for himself. Jack listens to the song, telling Emma that Cleo is desperate to pull out another hit before he disappears from the scene, and Jimmy's song is better than anything he can write. However, Jack admits that he can not prove that Cleo killed Jimmy.
Cleo's bodyguard kidnapped Emma, ​​and he sued the employer to exchange it. At the climactic confrontation at Lake Okeechobee, Jack and Juan meet bodyguards and Loreal, and exchange master for Emma. Then the guards tried to kill them all, but eventually raise the airboat he drove, with fatal results for himself and Loreal.
The day after the rescue was Jack's 47th birthday. Carla called from Anne's wedding to congratulate her. Jack's mother sent him a card with a copy of his father's obituary; he confessed that he died at the age of 46. ("Look? You made it!")
Janet reappears, saying she skipped the city when Cleo's thugs broke into her home. She confesses to Jack that she changed the tag on a pair of coffins at the funeral home, which means Jimmy's body was not cremated, but buried in the wrong man's grave. At his request, the body was dug, and autopsied, and the pathologist discovered that Jimmy was drugged before diving from the boat, causing him to faint underwater and drown. Cleo was arrested, tried, and convicted of murder; Jack returns to the front page covering the news. Jimmy's anums album is a hit.
The subplot focuses on Jack's ongoing feud with the Maggad III Race, and the worsening situation of the Union-Register since Maggad bought it. The Maggad policy has increased the maximum profitability of newspapers by reducing as much as possible on the actual gathering and reporting of less-news spaces in newspapers devoted to news and more to advertisements, fewer reporters and editors employed, and stories subject to business interests and less depth. After Jack insulted him at the shareholders' meeting, Maggad lowered Jack's position to the news page of death, expecting him to stop in embarrassment. Instead, Jack finds an ally at MacArthur Polk, the former newspaper publisher. Like Jack, Polk was furious about what Maggad had done to his paper, and now held a position of power, because he had a large number of shares in the publicly traded Maggad company, which Maggad despaired to buy back before two foreign companies started enemy takeovers.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
0 Comments