Bad Monkey is a Carl Hiaasen novel, so its no surprise that some of the characters include a sex-obsessed Voodoo Queen, an ex-teacher wanted for molesting her student, the student (who is re-united with the teacher years later and quite enjoying it), a kinky coroner, a businessman who made millions defrauding medicare turned crooked developer, a Key West Detective suspended from the force, for sodomizing his girlfriend’s (the aforementioned teacher) husband with a Dust-Buster, and finally, a Bad Monkey, who was fired from his role as the monkey in the Pirates of the Caribbean Films.
Former Detective Andrew Yancy has been suspended and is now working as a restaurant inspector, aka the Roach Patrol, when the sheriff asks him to take a severed arm to Miami, so as not to create controversy in the Keys.
When a woman reports her husband missing and a DNA test matches the arm to the missing husband, Yancy, who is eager to get his detective job back, starts looking into the case against the wishes of the sheriff. The investigation leads him to a lustful romance with Miami assistant coroner Dr. Rosa Campesino, who agrees to help in an unofficial capacity. She also helps Yancy recover from a dog bite to the buttocks, and a beating by a poncho-wearing, scooter-driving assailant.
The investigation brings Yancy and Dr. Rosa to the island of Andros in the Bahamas, where A fisherman named Neville is trying (through voodoo curses and other means) to regain his beachfront childhood home that was sold out from under him to a developer. We’re also introduced to Driggs, a diaper-wearing monkey that Neville won and is trying to train. Driggs was reportedly fired form the Pirates of the Caribbean films after getting intimate with costumes, and his bad habit of flinging feces.
Meanwhile, the Oklahoma authorities are looking for Yancy’s ex-girlfriend who is wanted for an underage romance with one of her students, who she reunites with. He’s keeping a journal of their escapes in hopes of selling the movie rights.
And of course, being Hiaasen, Yancy is also fighting (and quite humorously sabotaging) a developer building a too-tall house which blocks Yancy’s sunset view.
Hiaasen has a way of creating characters and situations that are outrageous, yet plausible enough to be ripped from a Florida Man headline. Take Driggs the monkey. When we first meet him, he’s definitely feral, and his behavior only gets worse under the tutelage of the Dragon Queen. But Hiaasen redeems the Monkey when he does a very, very bad thing, which turns out to be very good thing.
Another theme that is fairly common in Hiaasen’s work is the greed and corruption of developers. In Bad Monkey, we see this both with Yancy’s next-door development and the development of Neville’s family land. This being Hiaasen, both are destined for failure. Bad Monkey also pokes fun at Florida’s relationship with Medicare and those who take advantage of seniors for profit.
In the end, everyone gets what they deserve, some in a cringe-inducing, yet quite funny way.
