Bad Monkey

Written by Carl Hiaasen

Narrated by Lance Fuller

When a severed arm is discovered by a honeymooning couple in the Florida Keys, former police detective - now reluctant restaurant inspector - Andrew Yancy senses that something doesn't add up. Andrew's search for the truth takes him to the Bahamas, where a local man, with the help of a very bad monkey is doing everything in his power to prevent a developer from building a new tourist resort on the island, with deadly consequences…

Outrageous, hilarious and addictive, Bad Monkey will have you on the edge of your seat and laughing out loud

• Language: English
• Publisher: W. F. Howes Ltd
• Release date: Dec 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9781471249648

Carl Hiaasen

Carl Hiaasen was born and raised in Florida, where he started writing after being given a typewriter at the age of six. He writes a column for the Miami Herald and is the author of many bestselling novels, including Razor Girl and Bad Monkey. His books for younger readers include the Newbery Honor winner Hoot, as well as Flush, Scat, Chomp, and Skink – No Surrender.

Reviews for Bad Monkey

[kwskultety · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

NO one can make up stories like Hiaasen, and even though no regular characters are in this story, it was a joy to read.Not as gory as some of his earlier ones, but great dialogue.

[judygibson-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Nice light quickie.

[starknits_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

So 3.5 really.

Crazy story. very entertaining.

[rmckeown_9 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My main reading guilty pleasure includes several former (or current) newspaper journalists who turn novelists. Pete Dexter, Jennifer Weiner, and Carl Hiaasen tops the list. According to the author’s bio in his latest novel, Bad Monkey, Hiaasen was born and raised in Florida and has authored 12 novels. He also has four children’s books, four works of non-fiction, and four novels he co-wrote. Carl still writes a column for The Miami Herald. While I am not a big fan of murder mysteries, something about Hiassen’s style draws me in again and again. I have read four of his previous novels and enjoyed every one.Andrew Yancy is a skinny homicide detective who assaults his lover’s husband when he abuses her. The wealthy man threatens a law suit, and Yancy is demoted to “roach patrol,” or restaurant inspector as punishment. When a fishing boat lands a human arm, Yancy is asked to take it to the Miami Medical Examiner. The police chief of sleepy, quiet Big Pine Key hopes the case will go away. He has no desire to take on a homicide investigation. The ME examines the limb but refuses to keep it. Against instructions from the chief, Yancy takes it home and stores it in his freezer. The incident is labeled a “boating accident.” A couple of shootings occur and they seem to be unrelated, but the detective in Yancy is not so sure. He begins accumulating clues.A sub-plot involves the construction of a monstrous summer home, which provides some comic relief – although Yancy himself is pretty comical. Throw in the Dragon Queen – a voodoo priestess -- a man angered by the destruction of his family home, and a nasty little monkey, and the reader is in for a rollicking ride.Hiaasen always draws interesting and eccentric characters. He writes, “The phone kept ringing, but Yancy didn’t answer it. He was drinking rum, sitting in a plastic lawn chair. From next door came the offensive buzz of wood saws and the metallic pops of a nail gun. The absentee owner of the property was erecting an enormous spec house that had no spiritual place on Big Pine Key, and furthermore interfered with Yancy’s modest view of the sunset. It was Yancy’s fantasy to burn the place down as soon as the roof framing was finished. // He heard a car stop in his driveway but didn’t rise from the chair. His visitor was a fellow detective, Rogelio Burton. // ‘Why don’t you pick up your phone?’ Burton said. // ‘You believe that monstrosity? It’s like a [damn] mausoleum.’ // Burton sat down beside him. // [The Police Chief] wants you to take a road trip.’ // ‘Miami?’” Like most heroes asked to embark on an adventure, Yancy at first declines, but he then decides he better go north in the hope getting his badge back.Like all good mystery writers, Carl Hiaasen’s latest novel slowly reveals the truth of the wayward arm. Bad Monkey will satisfy anyone’s thirst for a good old whodunit. 5 stars--Jim, 8/13/15

[birdo82 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fun and frivolous romp of a read, Bad Monkey is a perfect entry point into Carl Hiaasen's addicting, humorous style.

[mark6harrison-226794 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The story was good. The narration was not. It sounded as though he was reading this adult novel to five-year old children. Also he over-annunciated each word.

[hagelstein_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The usual from Carl Hiaasen: Precisely plotted, Florida centric, highly humorous, entertaining characters, and with an underlying morale theme.Andrew Yancy is a somewhat disgraced former detective in the Keys trying to get his job back by solving a murder that no one at first thinks is a murder. He's doing this from his present position as restaurant inspector. There's a subplot of the view from his Big Pine Key house being obliterated by a giant spec house going up next door and a fugitive sex offender girlfriend. He also meets a fetching coroner and spends a lot of time on Andros Island, Bahamas, tracking down his suspect.Hiaasen sidesteps a lot of clichés while working within the cliché-laden genre of Florida crime novel - which he helped create. It's satisfying that things get wrapped up eventually, but not too neatly and with no certain answers.

[jolynne-4 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

If you like studly roguish cops this is the book for you. I picked this up because I heard an NPR broadcast about it, otherwise the book and I would have never crossed paths. I did enjoy the authors sense of humor.

[catherine_dilts · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another wild ride with Carl Hiaasen, this time in the Bahamas as well as the Florida Keys. There were so many plot complications that it took quite a bit to wrap them all up, but it all worked out in the end. Ha ha. If you're a Hiaasen fan, you know what to expect. I fell in love with Driggs.

[stephanie_m-868484 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Carl Hiaasen doesn’t balance carefully between satire and black humor in the opening paragraphs of this book, he jumps feet first into a situational comedy. This guy is admirable; he's a true-blue environmentalist, lover of the land and of justice. Even his children's books teach the right message: don't be greedy, don't be cruel, don't hurt animals, don't develop land that shouldn't be changed from the way Mother Earth made it. He writes funny characters and hilarious dialogue. Bad Monkey has his take on Bahamian vernacular, pulled off with inventive spelling which is challenging reading but worth every extra second it takes to absorb.

The writing is first rate; I liked that the protagonist, Andrew Yancy isn’t perfect, in fact far from it. For me that makes the character more believable, and I found him colorful besides.

Hiaasen has no decency. He garners stories from the actual news. Thus you are left wondering if a woman who has fallen in love (or in lust) with an ex-police officer will actually testify against him when he tries to sodomize her husband with a Hoover? At any rate, whatever the opposite of James Elroy is, Hiaasen represents it. I have been very sick lately, and to distract myself from the boring-ness of recuperating, I started Bad Monkey; named for a Capuchin so vile and ungovernable that he cannot work on Pirates of the Caribbean. The attacks of the monkey are funny enough to read the book. I recommend it to anyone, but don't let anyone else know that you are reading it. It will lower their estimation of you. I'm too old to care.

The appeal of Hiaasen to me is how he mixes the perverse and the moral, the high brow and the low brow, and other opposites to such great effect. His protagonist have their flaws, but they're never anything on the villains. And those greedy, violent schemers always get what's coming to them in the craziest ways. The path to the comeuppance is labyrinthine, but easy to follow because the humor and subject matter lighten it up and keep the story moving. Hiaasen makes me think of a Chuck Palahniuk who is less in love with his shock value and ever so slightly more optimistic about the human condition.

The only issue I had with this novel is, I also found the Caribbean accents hard going as a reader. They'll work in a movie - but reading them is too much hard work from an author whose writing style I find is normally easy on the brain. I understand the Jamaican/Bahamian/Caribbean accents with no problems. Other authors have tried to write in these accents, from around the Florida Keys, and had no problems making them both understandable, and accented. But Hiaasen failed in this area. There were passages in the novel where I had no idea what the character was trying to say, and had to take a few minutes to puzzle it out. I think this could have been done better, but as to how, I would have NO idea.

[kendallone · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I couldn't finish it. Don't know why, I just didn't find it particularly interesting or compelling. I'm past the point in my life where I need to finish every book I start. It just wasn't worth the time to me.

[carlathelibrarian · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book was fun to read. It could be confusing at times and sometimes scary to think that I like to eat out. The concept is a bit far fetched, but amusing. A murder or two, some really bad restaurants, a nasty monkey, a voodoo queen, a body guard, severed limbs and who knows what might happen next.

[mojomomma_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Good detective story. Man tries to take his own death by cutting off his arm so that he can live on the milllions that he has dwindled from Medicare selling motorized wheelchairs to Florida’s elderly.

[carl_alves_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Bad Monkey was the first novel that I’ve ever read from Carl Hiassan, and it will probably be my last. It was a meandering humor/crime novel that starts off with the discovery of an arm. Detective Andrew Yancy, who just lost his job as a detective, winds up with the arm and begins investigating the case, taking him from the Florida Keys to Miami to the Bahamas.I’m not the biggest fan of humor writing other than the brilliant Jeff Strand. Occasionally, the humor worked, but more often than not it fell flat. There were many side characters that I had little to no interest in. Even when they tied into the overall story arc, I still had little interest in them. I thought the novel went too long, and I would have been perfectly fine if they cut all of the side characters. Finally, there were some things that so deeply stretched the boundaries of reality. I would have been fine if they were unrealistic and funny at the same time, but that wasn’t the case here. It had a complete lack of realism with no pay off.So, although there were some elements of this novel that I liked, they were outweighed by everything that I didn’t like.Carl Alves – author of Blood Street

[jbarringer-2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Setting: Florida
I found the monkey creepy and distracting from the overall story, but otherwise this was a fun murder mystery with some funny bits and a fairly interesting cast of characters, all of them a bit caricatured, but good enough for light entertainment.

[mirrani_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fans of this author say this book is not the one you should start with and I started with it. If this isn't supposed to be the best, I will certainly pick up more, because I found it rather entertaining. Here's a disclaimer though, I listened to the audiobook, which was performed wonderfully and fit very well within the genre, so that may have influenced my enjoyment of the written work.The quirkiness of the setting and characters settled well with me even though I am not a fan of pure ridiculousness for the sake of it. I'm also not a fan of impossible happenings in crime books, where things seem over the top or far too grand in their scheme, but this time was different, almost refreshing. I can't explain why other than to put it down again to the audio telling.I expect I'll like the other books in this series. I certainly intend to give them a try, audio or not.

[pamela_sc-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hilarious.....and dark.

[ozzie65-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

So my Hiassen hook up (thank you Randi!!!!) said I could borrow her new book and even read it before her. Now that is what I call a good friend! I returned to the lovable rogue, Andrew Yancy who is soon to be kicked out of the Monroe County Sheriff’s office for shoving a car vacuum …..well, you’ll have to read about that.A very suspicious boating accident has resulted in a lone arm, middle finger extended, washing up in Key West. The sheriff wants Miami to handle it and dispatches Yancy, arm in tow, to take it to the ME up there.Meanwhile, Yancy is trying to deal with development gone crazy in his quiet little corner of the world. All he wants is his miniature deer to graze peacefully and watch the sunset. But Andrew Yancy is a creative man and he does his best to foil said development.His love life is complicated. He has a fugitive sex offender from Oklahoma with her hot pants and his burgeoning interest in the medical examiner from Miami. He is also investigating the arm on his own (off the clock) and getting mixed up in a complex plot that has a lot of moving pieces.Over the course of the book, he will work with corrupt cops, the Russian mafia and Bahamian crims to get this mystery solved. He will survive a hurricane, dog bites, fires, bees and voodoo.The best character so far though is the bad monkey aka Driggs. He pops up repeatedly in the book and has his own complicated relationships with his Bahamian brethren as well as visitors to his home in the Caribbean. Driggs’ was famous for acting with Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean but he was also famous for getting kicked off the movie for bad behavior. This book is hilarious and another great beach read. I have found these Hiassen books are just the ticket to cleanse my palate after reading heavy books or books I just wasn’t that into. These are so well written that I get involved, finish them smiling and am ready to delve back into weightier tomes.Bad Monkey is fun and funny. Highly recommend. You’ll love it!

[whybehave2002 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I'm so disappointed. I rated this on the half of the book I finished. This was not the easy flowing story that I am used to from Carl. It didn't even get me to laugh out loud so it got stale for me. Too many people that I had a hard time fitting together. The monkey was a monkey...so? Maybe I should stick to books that only have Skink as he always has me in hysterics. I hate giving up on a book but there is so little time and I want to enjoy it instead of feeling like I must slog through because of an obligation I created in my mind when I turned the first page. ?

[annbury_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This very, very funny novel takes us back to Hiaassen's South Florida stomping ground (with a side trip or two), and brings together an assortment of mostly undesirable but still gripping characters. The pace is frenetic from the first, and so is the humor. Not quite as good as "Razor Girl", for me at least -- wish I had read this one first -- but very enjoyable.

[kerns222 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

fast cheap-shot satire. Feels like a party I went to once where we drank to much and made up plotlines. Fun enough to keep you happy for a tight airplane seat

[ewyatt_16 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A typical Carl Hiaasen romp. In the Florida Keys, Yancey has been recently relieved of his duties as a police detective as a result of an impulsive attack on his girl friend's husband. After a severed arm is fished up by a charter group, the arm figures in a medicare scam and possible murder. Engaging with a sense of bawdy humor, the book was a fun vacation read, especially with the Bahamian subplot.

[sleahey_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hiaasen's usual irreverence makes for an entertaining mystery. When a severed arm is found by some tourists on a fishing jaunt, no one wants to figure it out except for Yancy, who has been suspended from the police force for his antics.

[grandpahobo_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Funny and well crafted mystery.

[scot2-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A quirky, entertaining book. There was a vein of humour running throughout the story. Nothing could be taken too seriously, least of all the characters who all seemed a bit 'off the wall.' I was beginning to get a little bored near the end. A fun, relaxing read.

[joeydag · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Fun to read. Classic Hiaasen. If you've read one of his other novels you will enjoy this.

[etxgardener · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A mediocre Carl Hiaasen book is better than no Carl Hiaasen book in the summertime, and, unfortunately, this latest effort is decidedly mediocre.Andrew YAncy - late of the Miami PD and more recently the Key West PD due to an unfortunate incident with a carvac and the husband of his mistress - has been given the dubious distinction of taking care of the severed arm of the victim of an assumed boating accident. His boss, the publicity adverse Sheriff, assigns him to palm the case off onto the Miami PD before Yancy assumes his new assignment on "roach patrol" (i.e. Restaurant inspector). Of course, Yancy suspects that there has been no accident and, instead, the victim has been murdered and decides to go freelance.The usual cast of bizarre characters is in evidence: a jealous former girlfriend who also happens to be a fugitive from Oklahoma justice, a Medicare scammer, a dishonest real estate scammer, a Bahamian Voodoo queen and, of course, the bad monkey.Unfortunately, the story just never jells and after the denouement in a Category 3 Hurricane in the Bahamas, pretty much limps to the last page. Let's hope for a better effort next time.

[dham340 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A crazy funny detective story set in the Florida keys.

Really well done.

Highly recommended.

[kaipakartik_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fast and enjoyable read. It was funny as well. Not the best I have ever read but an entertainer.

[jarratt_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Since I typically read CIA/terrorist thrillers, Carl Hiaasen's "Bad Monkey" was a different read for me. One I'm glad I tried.Key West Detective Andrew Yancy gets knocked down to restaurant health inspector after assaulting his former lover's husband. Meanwhile, tourists who are out fishing pull up a shark-gnawed left arm. Since it seems pretty clear the victim died in a boating accident, there appears to be no crime. But things aren't adding up for Yancy, so he sees this as an opportunity to get his job back. Many quirky characters and situations later... Well, I'll stop there.I thought the writing was good and quite frequently humorous. The sub-plots were well fleshed out and didn't seem to be used as filler. And I loved how effectively he wrote the Bahamian dialect. It sometimes took a second read to get the phonetics, but it was very well done.