Star Island

The career of singer Cheryl Bunterman (aka Cherry Pye), who debuted with Jailbait Records at age 15, is foundering due to her lack of talent and indiscriminate appetite for drugs, booze, and sex in this outrageous, offbeat novel from Hiaasen (Nature Girl). Among those struggling to keep Cherry's career afloat are her mother, Janet Bunterman; producer Maury Lykes; and "undercover stunt double" Ann DeLusia, who will, say, mislead the press into thinking Cherry is out and about when she's really in rehab. Hiaasen has easy targets in misbehaving celebrity sightings, tabloid stalkings, and spin control experts, and he makes the most of them. Crooked real estate developer Jackie Sebago and paparazzo Bang Abbott, who plans to hitch his wagon to Cherry's star, add to the madcap fun. Mayhem follows after Bang kidnaps Ann instead of Cherry by mistake, and ex-Florida governor and eco-vigilante Clinton "Skink" Tyree, who was smitten with Ann after a chance encounter, rushes to her rescue. The torrent of pop culture barbs are bound to please Hiaasen's ardent fans.

From Bookmarks Magazine

There is precious little innocence in Carl Hiaasen's moral universe, muses the Washington Post, "only gradients of venality." Longtime admirers of Hiaasen's fiction will relish the wicked wit, fast-moving plot, and delightfully odious cast of characters in this satirical send-up of celebrity culture. However, some critics found Hiaasen's subject matter passé in the wake of the latest entertainment industry scandals, and one objected to contrived characters and plot developments. Despite their complaints, reviewers generally enjoyed Star Island, and readers will also laugh at Hiaasen's "latest celebration of the grotesques and morally ambiguous citizens of his native Florida" (San Francisco Chronicle), even if the novel doesn't rate as one of his best.