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Big Trouble
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780425178102
ISBN: 0425178102
Label: Berkley
Manufacturer: Berkley
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: January 01, 2001
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: January 09, 2001
Studio: Berkley
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Editorial Review:
Dave Barry, the only newsman to win a Pulitzer for exemplary use of words like booger, will please humor and crime-fiction fans alike with this racy debut novel. The scene is Miami. In ritzy Coconut Grove, the teen son of Eliot, a newsman turned adman, sneaks up to spritz a cute girl with a Squirtmaster 9000 to win a high school game called Killer. Meanwhile, two hit men sneak up to kill the girl's abusive stepdad, Arthur. Arthur cheated his bosses at corrupt Penultimate, Inc., which equipped a Florida jail with automatic garage-opener gates that accidentally freed prisoners in a lightning storm.
Farcical confusion ensues, witnessed by a saintly bum named Puggy, camped in a tree in Arthur's yard. Puggy works at the Jolly Jackal Bar & Grill, which has no grill and actually sells guns and bombs to an offshoot of the Crips and Bloods called the Cruds, and to Penultimate (which plans to conquer Cuba). But when dim thugs Eddie and Snake rob the Jolly Jackal and Arthur tells them it's a Russian mob front selling bombs, the proprietor snorts, "Bombs, pfft! No bombs! Is bar."
Can Snake and Eddie spirit a suitcase nuke through Miami, "where most motorists obeyed the traffic and customs of their individual countries of origin"? Can Eliot and cop Monica Rodriguez save the day? And how do the 300-pound hallucinogenic Enemy Toad, the 13-foot-long python Daphne, highway goats, and the Denture Adventure seniors' theme park fit in? Everything fits perfectly, including a few dark passages new to Barry's work. But one warning: if you read this book while drinking milk, at some point it will spurt out of your nostrils. --Tim Appelo
Dave Barry makes his fiction debut with a ferociously funny novel of love and mayhem in south Florida.In his career, Dave Barry has done just about everything--written bestselling nonfiction, won a Pulitzer Prize, seen his life turned into a television series. And now, at last, he has joined the long list of literary figures from Jane Austen to Tolstoy who have made the transition from humor columnist to novelist...and done it with a style and inventiveness that establishes that, yes, he is very good at that, too.In the city of Coconut Grove, Florida, these things happen: A struggling adman named Eliot Arnold drives home from a meeting with the Client From Hell. His teenage son, Matt, fills a Squirtmaster 9000 for his turn at a high school game called Killer. Matt's intended victim, Jenny Herk, sits down in front of the TV with her mom for what she hopes will be a peaceful evening for once. Jenny's alcoholic and secretly embezzling stepfather, Arthur, emerges from the maid's room, angry at being rebuffed. Henry and Leonard, two hit men from New Jersey, pull up to the Herks' house for a real game of Killer, Arthur's embezzlement apparently not having been quite so secret to his employers after all. And a homeless man named Puggy settles down for the night in a treehouse just inside the Herks' yard.In a few minutes, a chain of events that will change the lives of each and every one of them will begin, and will leave some of them wiser, some of them deader, and some of them definitely looking for a new line of work. With a wicked wit, razor-sharp observations, rich characters, and a plot with more twists than the Inland Waterway, Dave Barry makes his debut a complete and utter triumph."The funniest book I've read in fifty years."--Elmore Leonard"Despite wealth, fame and a tendency to undermedicate himself, Dave Barry remains one of the funniest writers alive. Big Trouble is outrageously warped, cheerfully depraved--and harrowingly close to true life in Florida. This book will do for our tourism industry what Dennis Rodman did for bridal wear."--Carl Hiaasen
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Decent first effort at fiction by Barry
This is an off-beat little sort-of-hard-boiled crime thriller (think Elmore Leonard lite with a dose of wacky humor). Dave Barry's brand of humor didn't always translate well into the fictional format, in my opinion, but for the most part he pulled it off. If you're a fan of his humor columns, you will probably like this novel, but that will depend somewhat on whether the darker elements bother you--there are some unsavory characters here. Barry does just enough characterization to make each character ... Read More
Rating:  - Hysterical!
Dave Barry weaves a funny, complicated tale, and this is one of his best. Full of off beat characters, absurd but somehow true to life scenarios, and bad guys who get their comeuppance, this is an engrossing cassette set to listen to. The narration is excellent as well, by a true audio artist!
Rating: - Completely Brilliant
Anyone who has read any of Dave Barry's work knows how completely hilarious his analogies and descriptions can be. However, almost all of his work has been short editorial articles. This novel is like a full feature film of Dave Barry's notoriously outrageous mind.
This book is probably the funniest book I have ever read, even considering novels by Christopher Moore, Douglas Adams, Carl Hiassen, and many others. I don't know if I can ever look at Florida the same way after reading this book. ... Read More
Rating: - Laughed Out Loud Many Times
BIG TROUBLE is a very funny crime novel. I've never read Dave Barry's column (which, as of this date, no longer exists), but this book makes me wish that I had. There are many laugh-out loud moments, especially in the first half of the book, when the huge cast of characters is introduced. Barry also has a great time skewering the culture and people of Miami.
This is a farcical novel, and you have to keep that in mind as you read it. If you're looking for serious or sophisticated humor, or ... Read More
Rating: - Dave Barry
Dave Barry is probably the funniest man in America!! This book is as crazy as his columns, only longer!
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