That said, it still has lively moments and a satisfying ending. Finally, putting Erin's daughter in the middle of things backfires, at least for me: there's nothing entertaining about the custody fight, and it's as if Hiaasen is pinned down by these situations rather than liberated. Even Moldy and the congressman are less outrageous than the oddball villains in earlier novels. Erin, the main character, is one version of a sexist male fantasy: the good, chaste, beautiful woman who refuses to compromise her ethics and strips only for the most moral reason: to get her daughter back. In a sense, Hiaasen (and Al Garcia) are too respectful of the "dancers," who are all purified of any vices whatsoever. "Strip Tease" is solid but has less of that jaw-dropping otherness. The worlds of bass fishing or cosmetic surgery, peopled with extreme eccentrics, filled with bodies being deconstructed like weird sentences, were exhilarating to encounter. But in the first four, Hiaasen created vibrant parallel universes that conveyed a sense of Florida familiarity only to revel in extraordinary wildness. Like the earlier novels, this one is smart and well written, and has its pleasures. I'm reading the Hiaasen books in order, starting with "Tourist Season," and this is the first that left me a bit underwhelmed.
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